Bruce Conner: Three Screen Ray

On Saturday, September 14, the Citadelpark muta­tes into a sul­try are­na for a new GHOST x Monterey – a carou­sel of explo­si­ve live per­for­man­ces, music, map­pings and audio­vi­su­al art. As part of this edi­ti­on, Art Cinema OFFoff pre­sents the three-chan­nel film instal­la­ti­on Three Screen Ray (2006) by the semi­nal avant-gar­de film­ma­ker Bruce Conner (1933−2008) on the faca­de of the entran­ce to the nuclear bun­ker tha­t’s loca­ted in the park. 

The scree­ning loca­ti­on adds to the expe­rien­ce of this work. Bruce Conner rea­ched puber­ty in sync with the A‑bomb, the Cold War and the arri­val of a TV in eve­ry American home. The mushroom cloud is one of the sig­na­tu­re ima­ges in many of his works (A Movie, Cosmic Ray, Crossroads). The Ghent bun­ker ser­ved as the pro­vin­ci­al nuclear and bio­lo­gi­cal cri­sis cen­ter during the Cold War. With a bat­tery of mea­su­ring instru­ments, the air was con­stant­ly scree­ned for radio­ac­ti­ve par­ti­cles and tra­ces of che­mi­cal or bio­lo­gi­cal weapons. The charts and maps moni­to­ring pos­si­ble nuclear attacks are still pre­ser­ved in the OPS room. 

Three Screen Ray is a re-ima­gi­ned and expand­ed ver­si­on of Cosmic Ray (1961), Conner’s land­mark col­la­ge film that essen­ti­al­ly inven­ted the gen­re of the music video. Like the ori­gi­nal sin­gle-screen ver­si­on, Three Screen Ray​’s sound­track fea­tu­res a sexu­al­ly char­ged, live recor­ding of Ray Charles’s 1959 hit song ​“What’d I Say” set to an ecsta­tic, fast-paced col­la­ge of preexis­ting and ori­gi­nal ima­gery, inclu­ding news­reel foot­a­ge of bomb explo­si­ons, car­toons, tele­vi­si­on com­mer­ci­als, fire­works, flas­hing lights and his sig­na­tu­re use of count­down lea­der. A tour de for­ce of edi­ting and film tech­ni­ques, the film itself is mani­pu­la­ted by Conner with hole pun­ches and ink stains. The cen­tral ima­ge is of Cosmic Ray, fea­tu­ring Conner’s mul­ti­ple expo­su­res of a woman (Kansas-born artist Beth Pewther) dan­cing in various sta­tes of undress. 

Conner had this idea of an expand­ed ver­si­on of Cosmic Ray very ear­ly on. In 1965, he rewor­ked the sin­gle pro­jec­ti­on film as a silent, three-screen 8mm film pro­jec­ti­on using three unsyn­chro­ni­zed films of dif­fe­rent lengths, cal­l­ed Eve-Ray-Forever (1965, 2006). Precisely cut to the re-inclu­ded Ray Charles sound­track, Three Screen Ray is the syn­chro­ni­zed final ite­ra­ti­on of the­se works and the sum of his fil­mic oeu­vre. Images meet, diver­ge and meet again. In col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with his long­ti­me edi­tor, Michelle Silva, Conner cre­a­ted the visu­al equi­va­lent of a cine­ma­tic slot machine.

Our time fra­me in the GHOST sche­du­le is bet­ween 22:30 and 23:00, but the instal­la­ti­on will be con­ti­nuous­ly on view in loop during the eve­ning and night!

Thank you to Michelle Silva and the Bruce Conner Family Trust