Zeitgeist of the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Ever By Ryan Trecartin PS1 New York City June 19-September 3, 2011 Ryan Trecartin's latest installation, Any Ever, engages eight multi-sensory rooms or unique sculptural theaters connected in a large loop, and seven highly layered high-definition videos ranging from ten to fifty minutes and filled with impulsive, spontaneous, youthful drama engaging compelling twenty-first century issues. Taking three years to complete, the project. involved over one hundred people. Trecartin and his long-time collaborator Lizzie Fitch are the prime movers behind the zany tales. Each video features a specific narrative outlined in the wall text of the entrance room, but the overall sense of Zeitgeist is more impressive than the story lines. Intensely edited, the improvisational process stays suspended without apparent full closure. Imagine Pierre Huyghe on speed. At moments, the look of the characters' painted faces conjures up the goat in Robert Rauschenberg's Monogram (1955-59), whereas the ambiguous sexual quality brings to mind the spirit of Jack Smith's provocative Flaming Creatures (1963). The rapid-fire pace occupies the opposite end of the scale from Matthew Barney's slowly evolving Cremaster films (1994-2002). The installation shared some of the environmental, experiential quality of Pipilotti Rist's Pour Tour Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) (2008) but with almost constant agitated yet playful angst. Despite the associations, Any Ever, in its totality, claims new territory by shaping and harnessing social media. The videos' use of texting, iChat, and Facebook -- as well as dominant themes of post-industrial, late-consumer global culture -- inform the crosstalk and playful graphics. The recurrent Container Store shopping bags with their Contain Yourself logos are particularly ironic since few characters in the series appear to be physically, sexually, or psychologically contained. Rather, they tend to violently smash objects (glasses and mirrors are favorites) and move fluidly, if frenetically, across old-fashioned borders of gender and physical space. Scenes depict shopping, real estate without a sense of place, rapid obsolescence, and diverse attitudes toward working versus career-building in the current marketplace. The general quandary and hysteria around globalese in one of the videos signals the future, which, of course, is now. References are made to a character named Korea, and at one point, we see the vibrant twenty-first century skyline of Shanghai with its polychromatic explosion of skyscrapers -- one shaped like a Christmas tree ornament and another like a giant glass and steel can opener. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the films' scripts, social media and commerce often become metaphors for experience. The result is vibrant twenty-first century haiku-like poetry with loaded phrases such as Don't throw your discount at me, No one wants to loop or pre-set! …