2009 / 2011
Three-night performance / HD video
11 hr
I mounted a small movie screen to the front of an aluminum rowboat onto which I projected Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy while drifting down an industrial river at night toward the Pacific Ocean.
Originally this was performed over three nights, with advertising posters placed around Vancouver. Viewers were given approximate start points and times so they could find places on the river bank to watch the film drift by.
I then made the work as a video. A second boat drifted behind the first capturing the proceedings on camera. The length of the video is the same as the running time of the extended DVD version of the trilogy. As the distance between the boats changes, the volume of the movie compared to the ambient river sounds also shifts.
The video was made in two takes. In the original take, the batteries powering the projector and the electric trolling motors for steering the boat failed, leaving us drifting along in the dark. We returned to the same point on the river, at the same time of night, to film the rest of the journey. The cut in the video marks the point where adventures in the real took over the production.
Epic Journey Performance Poster
2009
poster
22 × 33 in
2009
poster
22 × 33 in