QUEER NIGHTCLUBS AS STAGE!

A pulsing heartbeat is underneath all of the films which creates a bass-like, somewhat eerie vibration as one travels through the space. The other throughline is snippets from Julian Eastman’s piano piece “Gay Guerilla.” Occasionally, all of the films will show the same clip at once for a few seconds. The second film is Queer Nightlife as Stage. This is a three screen projection with two speakers. Each speaker plays part of the same soundscape, creating a “back and forth” effect. These two films will be projected onto an existing wall and a new curtain wall. Two of the four “Mothers,” the human-sized projector stands, stand in the side of the space and cast the films out. Parts of the introduction film are cast through the entry gap and blend with these two films as well. The films present an argument about the freeing space of queer nightlife that exists for a night but is subject to oppressive external forces of capitalism and heteronormativity. Visually, the films combine bathroom stall footage, recordings of architectural features inside, gender performance footage, and clips from seminal queer film “The Queen” from 1968. The soundscape consists of bathroom noises, cheering, gossip, performance introductions, and archival morality sounds.