a partipatory project artist

BIO   CV   PRESS   CONTACT
   
     

fertile creatures (series)
drawing
composting diaper
sapphire pacifier
onesie armor
infant vampire formula

photos
belly back
boob shoulder
crows
c-section cut path

preditorXtreme (series)
sculpture
fox gun
baby quail grenades

drawings
coyote sight
fox guns
prairie dog revolver
baby quail grenades

the dead garden (series)
Winter Shack, Brooklyn, NY
High Desert Test Sites, CA

the portable forest (series)
Dumbo Arts Center & Festival, NYC
The Armory Center for the Arts, CA
The San Deigo Museum of Art
Monte Vista Projects, LA
Sunset Blvd. Art Concert, LA
Human Resources, LA
Washington Blvd. Art Concert, LA
Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions
Sea and Space Explorations, LA

public art places
organizer, curator, director
sea and space explorations, LA
tree and space, LA
sound in space Festival, LA
100 person solo show, LA

participatory
you are the largest thing on Earth
art of exchange
primal scream painting booth
we
miss
wish

sculpture/installation
data planter
yard
search
loop
blue kiss
island of misfit toys

concept paintings
student waste painting
portal paintings
black holes
LED Paintings

videos
Periphery Murder Mystery
Paradigm Shifts Frighten Small...

A Flat Ontology
born free

performative
Digital Improvisational Ensemble

public art places
organizer, curator, director
sea and space explorations, LA
tree and space, LA
sound in space Festival, LA
100 person solo show, LA


spacer

spacer

Born Free
Director and editor: Lara Bank
Running time: 1 minute 22 seconds
Video
2001


A 1 Minute 22 Second loop of horse running backwards to a midi version of "Born Free". The original music for "Born Free" was created by John Barry for the movie, also entitled, "Born Free", 1966. The horse is rotoscoped and modified. The source comes from a scene in the movie, "The Black Stallion", 1979, adapted from the novel by Walter Farley, of Alex riding "The Black" on the beach waving his hands in the air. Perhaps this is irrelevant being that it is unrecognizable, but the particular section makes for a clean loop. The scene being representative of freedom and love between the boy and the horse is significant, but once again this is negated by the lack of identifying traits. The horse is clearly wild, the quintessential icon for the freedom possible in all of us, and this reads clear. The backwards motion of the movement indicates that something is not quite right. Somehow, the ideal, nostalgic, reflection of our notion of freedom is mixed wrong. The movie "Born Free" is based on the true story of British game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy and their life in Kenya. They raise a lioness, Elsa, as a pet, and find that they must retrain her to live in the wild in order to prevent the Government from placing her in a zoo. The song in this piece is the theme song of the movie but in midi.

A midi made of a popular song is like "elevator music", it longs for the essence of a song, but the essence of an analog song resists and most often the complexity is missed and the music is reduced to a quotation of itself. So, what is left here is a loop which is overly emphatic, in a slightly sickening way, that grows exhaustive on repitition. Perhaps, most notable is the extent of cloaking going on of one’s resources, almost a mystification of the sources of nostalgia, a running backward into a no man’s land, of forgotten songs, and ambiguous ponies---stripped of signifiers. What is left is the feeling of something we have missed, something forgotten, or left behind. A reinstatement of the spirit of the original works represented in a disguised form sustained in a loop of stultified progress.

 

© 2024 L. Bank