Zoom in on That, Man: 2 Videos by Dodge & Kahn

Still from Whacker, 2005

I first encountered the work of Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn at the Getty’s California Video exhibit in 2008. In Whacker , 2005, Stanya Kahn is in the middle of one of those abandoned, overgrown hills you see along the road in LA, trying to mow the weeds with a weed whacker. It’s so monotonous, and sad, and funny, you’re like, come on, why are you doing that? Who made you do it, and why did you agree? But she is just wearing this red dress with heels and sunglasses like it’s nobody’s business what she’s doing, it’s Sunday morning or something and she’s just doing this, like it’s part of her everyday routine, and who gives a fuck. And then you kind of see the slow little cars turning the corner in the background and the washed out apartment complexes and the palm trees in the smog, and you think, oh, but maybe this is life. Maybe this is it. Because who the hell knows what we’re all doing: driving to work, learning things, having sex, raising children, eating food, watching tv, searching for god, whacking weeds.

The videos that are currently being exhibited at PS1 are more complex–longer, with lots of dialogue, edits, location changes, costuming. My favorite is Can’t Swallow It, Can’t Spit It Out, 2006, where a mysterious documentarian follows Ms. Kahn–a nose-bloodied Valkyrie carrying a large wedge of swiss cheese–through various spots in Los Angeles where potential tragedies may or may not have occured. (“Zoom in on THAT, man,” Kahn says. “It’s like some guy was just standing there, and then he burned. That kind of stuff just happens.”)

The documentary is curiously framed; the duo never seems to be able to get inside the action but are always interpreting the action from outside the action, or after the fact of the action, or sometimes they fail to recognize that the action is occuring at all. In one of the scenes, the two are just lounging around by this dam, rocking out on air guitar, while paramedics, fire trucks, and police cars are whizzing to some emergency right next to their spot. Instead of following the action, they quietly immerse themselves in a philosophical debate about relationships. Maybe this says something about how we are dealing with our anxieties about war, as we simultaneously demand a right to know what’s going on, yet subconsciously avoid finding out the real facts.

Extra: An interesting interview about performance with Dodge & Kahn, by Michael Smith (aka Baby Ikki).