Play Dead; Real Time

Play Dead; Real Time
During my recent trip to the Hirshhorn Museum I was most struck by a piece entitled "Play Dead; Real Time" by Douglas Gorson. The piece shows two large screens playing the same video at two different time intervals. The subject matter of the piece is a large elephant named Minnie, who originally was from India but was shot for this work in New York City. The screens of the piece are large enough so that Minnie appears as large as she would in real life. The work is shown without noise, and in the video Minnie beginnings as ‘dead,’ but then you watch her struggle to ‘come back to life’ in an empty gallery space. The videos are synced in a way that Minnie is simultaneously ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ at the same time on one screen or the other. I chose “Play Dead; Real Time” both because I am interested in large scale installation and also because I was intrigued by what the technique and meaning might be behind the piece. In the piece, the elephant is trained and is doing rather simple trained motions as it is being directed to by its trainer. However not knowing this you can get the impression that the elephant is playing dead for a reason, perhaps even out of necessity of survival. The elephant’s actions appear almost quite human in nature and as you watch the film you empathize with Minnie’s struggle. The film is also given a definite start and finish, with the start showing Minnie lying down but struggling to get up, which gives you the instant thought of emotionally pulling for her. Overall I thought the work was very effective and moving and I would be interested to see more works by Gorson.

-Christine Sanford