Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016
Oct 28, 2016–Feb 5, 2017
Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson
20
Easternsports is an immersive environment of color, light, scent, music, spoken word, and videos. The installation is a collaboration between Alex Da Corte, who created the sets, costumes, and videos, and Jayson Musson, who wrote the script, with a haunting score by the composer Devonté Hynes.
Within the stagelike installation, the videos present a vignette-driven update of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town, with allegorical references to the city of Philadelphia, where both artists have lived for many years. Da Corte built the video sets entirely by hand and filmed the action at half speed, creating a dreamlike space punctuated by Musson’s incisive, poetic text. The colorful sets and the robotic exaggeration of the performers’ movements evoke both Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet, also on view in this exhibition, and the exuberance of Philadelphia’s mummer tradition, in which costumed entertainers welcome in the New Year with a parade.
Alex Da Corte (b. 1980) with Jayson Musson (b. 1977). Easternsports, 2014
Alex Da Corte (b. 1980) with Jayson Musson (b. 1977). Easternsports, 2014. Four-channel video, color, sound; 152 min., with four screens, neon, carpet, vinyl composition tile, metal folding chairs, artificial oranges, orange scent, and diffusers. Score by Devonté Hynes. Collection of the artists; courtesy David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen, and Salon 94, New York. Installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art,University of Pennsylvania, 2014 © Alex Da Corte; image courtesy the artist and Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania