Simple Mechanics
14 VIDEO VIGNETTES & WEBSITE | MFA Thesis Project
Labor. A fraught topic, particularly now. Globalization and mechanization have transformed the way we work, but America retains a strongly mythologized view of labor. Edgy urbanites don Carharts and swig Pabst, yearning for a gritty authenticity which modern, computer-driven life can lack. Pundits, politicians, and corporations sing paeans of the proletariat, while simultaneously using them as pawns. Meanwhile, the working class feels increasingly disenfranchised and ignored. There is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality—disparity increases and political polarization accelerates, and no one can agree on a solution.
Visions of labor are outdated, often exclusive. “American Labor” conjures images of 1930s wpa posters and 1960s Labor movements, the protagonist often white, straight, Protestant, and male. My collaborator, Lauren Traugott-Campbell, and I wanted to present an alternate, more complicated view.
Labor. A fraught topic, particularly now. Globalization and mechanization have transformed the way we work, but America retains a strongly mythologized view of labor. Edgy urbanites don Carharts and swig Pabst, yearning for a gritty authenticity which modern, computer-driven life can lack. Pundits, politicians, and corporations sing paeans of the proletariat, while simultaneously using them as pawns. Meanwhile, the working class feels increasingly disenfranchised and ignored. There is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality—disparity increases and political polarization accelerates, and no one can agree on a solution.
Visions of labor are outdated, often exclusive. “American Labor” conjures images of 1930s wpa posters and 1960s Labor movements, the protagonist often white, straight, Protestant, and male. My collaborator, Lauren Traugott-Campbell, and I wanted to present an alternate, more complicated view.
The impetus for this project did not begin on such a serious note. One desk away, Lauren, interested in probing the relationship of labor and play, felt compelled to collect snippets of Car Talk and brightly colored manufacturing leftovers. I felt compelled to choreograph and orchestrate these materials. A partnership was formed.
Inspired by the work of Philip Glass (particularly Einstein on the Beach) and John Adams, the project took the form of an operetta. A ridiculous choice in many ways—two graphic designers making an operetta in a very short timespan. But opera, as a means to combine image, sound, and multiple voices, as a medium of complexity and deep emotion, it was destined to be.
Simple Mechanics maintains a number of conventional operatic trappings. We have an overture where the orchestra tunes, a first and second act, and an intermission. We have a grand red curtain, arias, characters, conflict, high drama, and an accompanying libretto to help the audience follow along. But our skill sets and our vision dictated that convention end there. Our curtain was assembled from greasy red mechanics’ rags. We had no actors or singers. On screen you see hands clad in work gloves interacting with a giant spool of orange tape printed with the word American. In the first act, the spool unwinds, in the second, it is cut across the word American. As for the score, our arias were cyclical spoken word poems accompanied by samples from the virtuosic YouTube spoons performances of Abby the Spoon Lady. We assembled the rest of the score from YouTube clips of pundits, politicians, corporations, and activists. As they talk, chant, and sing about labor and the working class, their voices mix together into a confusing blur, punctuated by weird and endearing mechanical imitations from Car Talk. During the Car Talk interludes, brightly colored industrial cast-offs perform with ebullience. It’s an odd mix—parts serious, parts hilarious, parts uncanny—but it manages to strike a compelling chord.
The storyline follows a rough chronology from the rise of the Labor movement in the 1960s, through its gradual unraveling over the past few decades of neoliberal policy. The voices are only identified in the printed libretto at the end of each act—with such a politically-charged topic, the anonymity acts as an equalizer. We have our opinions, but wish the viewer to form their own.