Title
Myth LabsDetails
2008 / 7:30 min
16mm (transferred to video).
Music by Laura Ortman, Mike Evans, Ryan Sawyer and Matt Marinelli
Mixed at EXILE studios by Matt Marinelli
Assistant/Producer: Isabelle Kohler
DESCRIPTION
‘Myth Labs’ interweaves Puritan visions, folk art, religious allegories and victims of the current Methamphetamine epidemic. This is a film about fear, paranoia, faith and loss of faith and salvation.
‘Myth labs’ takes place in the American frontier and wilderness. Similarly to Meth addicts in rural America, for the Puritans the wilderness represented a place of their damnation and their ultimate resurrection synonymously. Through blending these two times in American history, I attempt to illuminate the idea that the lure of this drug for contemporary rural inhabitants is rooted in our earliest consciousness-forming experiences as settlers in a state of spiritual and physical emergency. Overly fervent faith and addiction alike, can change one from mere mortal to Superman to scarecrow. Just as a ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’ these two vices (or devices) of salvation can have devastating consequences.
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Martha Colburn: what would
Jesus do (with a bag of drugs)?
Martin Luther dancing while
smoking crack, young women
injecting drugs into painfully raw
veins, and historical religious
fanatics sporting baseball hats
reading “I Love Jesus” while
carrying wads of cash are just a
few of the contentious figures
featured in Martha Colburn’s new
seven-minute film, Myth Labs,
2008, on sale at Galerie Diana
Stigter (A19). The New York-
based, self-taught artist is known
for using hand-painted cut-out
figures and old-school animation
techniques to create provocative
films that address topical
religious, political and socio-
economic issues.
In Myth Labs, which took
Colburn nine months to complete,
she uses the drug crystal meth as a
metaphor for the many ills that
plague US society, including
narcotic abuse, poverty and various
forms of oppression as well as
religious extremism.
The artist has juxtaposed
Biblical, historical and contemp-
orary images to illustrate these
“vices”. One scene depicts the
Pilgrim Fathers attempting to
convert the indigenous population
to Christianity. As well as the
artist’s film, there are four
installations incorporating the cut-
out figures that appear in the film.
Emily Sharpe
Art Newspaper, Art Basel daily edition, 5 June 2008
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