County
Down is a multi-platform project, combining web-based elements, a video
installation and a feature film component. Mirroring rave culture and the unbridled optimism around
technology during the 1990s, County Down
presents a society so obsessed with novelty and consumerism that it
euphorically embraces its own destruction.
The film uses the structure of
youth-culture media products, such as horror and science fiction movies, video
games and coming-of-age films as a barometer of cultural depression. In this live-action
animation, reality and illusion intermingle, creating a highly stylized world
of visual excess.
The
multigenerational cast of downtown performers and artists including: Chloe Bass, Becca Blackwell, Ellen
Cantor, Patty Chang, Marti Domination, Nicole Eisenman, Jim
Fletcher, James Fotopoulos, Gibson Frazier, Daniel Graff, Andy Haynes, William Powhida, Emily
Roysdon, Kate Valk, Stephanie Vella and Sacha Yanow. The soundtrack and musical
arrangements are by Johanna Fateman,
formerly of Le Tigre, and also include music by JD Samson, Wynne Greenwood,
Long Hind Legs and Lesbians On
Ecstasy. Costumes and styling are by GGrippo.
County Down is the story
of Angel, a teenage resident of a gated community. She develops a designer drug
with potentially apocalyptic side effects. The drug, called Quix, is the
ultimate consumer product, highly addictive and cheap to produce. This
substance is a relative of ergot, a rye contaminate responsible for St.
Anthony’s Fire, inducing symptoms that include hallucinations and gangrene. It
is also the fungus from which LSD is derived. Those that ingest the drug
develop immunity but become unwitting carriers. Angel holds the key to the
outbreak and its prevention – but her own debilitating addiction to both the
drug and her self-made success clouds her judgment.
Angel is intoxicated with
power and enraptured by the disaster she set in motion. As Angel’s friends band
together to fight the infected adults, their social order becomes more and more
distorted. Consumption becomes addiction, which, in turn, hastens the spread of
disease. As the authorities close in, Angel clings to her delusions
ferociously.
BIO
Laura Parnes
has screened and exhibited her work widely in the US and
internationally, including Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art,
Athens, Greece., LOOP Festival, Barcelona, Spain; Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY; Kusthalle Winterhur, Switzerland; Overgaden- Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; iMOCA, Indianapolis, IN;
Cinematexas, Austin, TX; Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania;
Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Whitney Museum of
American Art (1997 Whitney Biennial), NY; Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
New Zealand; PSI Contemporary Art Center MoMA, NY; Miami Museum of
Contemporary Art, FL; and Brooklyn Museum, NY.
Her
solo exhibitions include; LA><Art, LA, CA; Alma Enterprises,
London; Locust Projects, Miami; Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam; Los Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions, LA; Participant Inc, NY; and Deitch Projects,
NY. She has had solo screenings at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; MoMA PS1, LIC; The Kitchen, NYC; CATE
10 Year Anniversary, Presented by the School of Art Institute of
Chicago and Video Data Bank, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago Ill; Pacific
Film Archive, Berkeley Art Museum, CA; and Vtape, Toronto. She was
presented by Participant Inc. in a two-person exhibition at No Soul for
Sale at X Initiative, NYC, NY.
