On the pretext of applying for an institute, whose name you don’t reveal, you make a film about an abortion party you organised when you were 20. What inspired you to revisit this event and make a film about it?
Moving to Spain, the environment I found myself in was strikingly different from what I had in Chicago. I went from living in essentially a refurbished walk-in closet in an under-resourced neighbourhood to a largely sanitized European existence. The fears and concerns I had in the states were no longer applicable. I remember walking home late one night from a party, drunk, and was stopped by a man in a plaza who propositioned me. I told him to leave me alone, and to my disbelief, he did. In Chicago, I’d at least be harangued a bit more if not followed home. I was actually a bit offended by his lack of effort.
I adapted to my newfound security, and my habits and personality softened along with my environment. Grateful to no longer be beholden to my impulses and confused attempts at self-preservation, I began to pivot from being horrified by my past to respecting it. I love the 20 year old version of me who threw a party honouring something we were taught to be ashamed of for the sake of a good story.
This was all before the overturning of Roe V Wade. I started an earlier version of the film many years before. It originally had nothing to do with it. This party was during a lighter time, when the concern was more about respectability politics around abortion rather than women serving prison sentences for miscarriages. I have not made a film that would convert someone pro-choice. It goes against the typecasting necessary to justify abortion, namely, a virtuous woman with a bright future who made a mistake, or a victim of violence. Anyone pro-life would watch this film and think, “this is exactly the sort of liberal, capricious, morally bankrupt woman that uses her body thoughtlessly, she deserves to learn a lesson.” And maybe I am. Do frivolous people deserve to continue their frivolity on the off chance they develop redeem themselves? Is there redemption for idiots?
Abortion party presents a minimalist, vintage and original 3D animated digital environment: a few set elements and characters drawn from geometric shapes. How did you come up with this universe? What are your inspirations in terms of animation?
So the film is made with an earlier, 2017 version of Sketchup, an architectural modelling program.
I have always been intensely attracted to the concept of high effort, low skill. I find it to be the most authentic mode of communication. The way that there are some babies who babble, and you can tell they have complex that their language skills are yet unable to keep up with. I love the concept of desperation, needing to get a message out there, even if you are incapable of doing so in a way that is palatable to most people. It’s also why I love art made by children, outsider art, “bad art” etc. When there is skill, there is the instinct to use it, to take your message and muddy it with concerns about beauty, quality, seeming intellectual enough, being respected.
When these things aren’t a factor, the desire to express champions. Of course, I’m not an outsider artist, I studied at university and am also constrained by certain aesthetic concerns. Obviously I want my films to be engaging. But I try to play with these expectations of “quality”.
You claim a form of precariousness in the making of your film, notably through the recording of the sound of your voice with your iPhone, and you are solely credited with the production. How do you work? Where does this interest in DIY come from?
A good portion of it comes from what I mentioned above about need to communicate reigning over quality. Also, I just think it’s funny. Especially now that everything is so well done, even the supposedly DIY “look” is curated. I love seeing human error in art. And I think this is a common sentiment. Think about the way that people, especially in the art world, interact with AI created imagery. They like when it fails, when an extra finger is added or a body is badly morphed. An AI video with no glitches is horrendously boring. Humans look for evidence of humanity even in AI. And evidence of humanity comes from error. I think that at some point, everything will be so streamlined that content with mistakes will be considered a luxury.
In response to how I work, badly. I think there are long periods of observation stippled by brief moments of concentrated action. I write constantly. I have a million terrible ideas and occasionally one worth spending a bit of time on. Getting my heart broken is helpful. Being in love is distracting.
The vintage aspect of your film coexists with the presence of contemporary popular references, through images of young rappers like Spooky Black, or Yung Lean whose images decorate your flat. Why did you include them in the film?
With Yung Lean, I just wanted to reference my first film, which was based in the same apartment. And Spooky Black, I listened to him a lot during that time period, especially that album. There’s also Newport Menthols, which I used to smoke, and lines of crushed up Adderall. Now that’s vintage, casual Adderall addiction before the Great ADHD Stimulant Shortage.
You tell the story of this party in a continuous monologue in front of your computer camera, in the style of a YouTube tutorial. What is this logorrhoea a sign of?
The first version I made of this film was actually fully animated in Blender and I got people to voice act the characters, more like a typical animated film. It was boring.
After art school, I have developed an aversion to “artspeak”. I mean, I kind of like it. It’s fun to decipher some of the nonsense people are saying. But the idea that the most accepted way to engender respect is to make your message as veiled and confusing as possible to someone who hasn’t been in a specific academic environment is infuriating. That’s not to say art needs to be dumbed down or simplified, “artspeak” is necessary at times. But it shouldn’t be the only way to make it into any “credible” institution.
My disgust at this system and my desperate need to be accepted by it obviously clashed. I half-heartedly actually applied to quite a few programs and grants in order to get institutional support for this silly movie. Obviously, they were all rejected—the polarizing subject matter and aesthetic wasn’t able to be rescued by my less than optimal academic communication skills.
So I just got really frustrated two days after getting fired and figured I’d just do it myself, and blathered the story in one go. It is also important to me to use the first (and only) take each time I make a film. In Yung Lean it was the first take as well that was used.
Your video selfie image keeps moving around the universe between the characters. Could you tell us more about this choice of direction?
That was just to show everything that was happening in the scene and maintaining the viewer’s interest. Plus, it’s funny.
In its crude comic tone, the film tackles the issue of abortion and its recent ban in some states. Why did you choose humour to deal with such a serious and topical subject? What does it allow you to do?
I was raised to laugh in order not to cry. Maybe it’s not right. But I think it’s important to note the function of the abortion in the film. It’s the reason people are gathered, but in many ways it takes a backseat to the life that was around. It was placed the way the abortion was placed in my life: an obstacle, but ultimately a relief that allowed me to continue observing and enjoying the other little chaoses around me.
Interviewed by Louise Martin Papasian
