Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Priority Innfield, 2013. Installation view Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2014. Photo: Stuart Whipps.
“That’s the phrase, right – fuck shit up? I got that right? Let’s fuck. Shit. Up”
LA-based artists and long-term collaborators Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch have made some drastic (and welcome) changes to London’s Zabludowicz Collection. For starters, they’ve fitted in a carpet. Then there’s the neon-green walls connecting the different rooms, which are split up according to different works, and installed to look like vacant parking lots or the empty spaces of suburban American towns. Red plastic cups litter the aisles of some of the works, and wobbly, wooden constructions act as viewing areas within the superstructure. The chairs are uncomfortable as hell, and the semi-circular seating encourages you to stare out your fellow audience members. Then there’s the extra high viewing area overlooking the whole installation. It’s all very apt for the themes they explore in their work: voyeurism, narcissism and performativity in the digital age.
“Priority Innfield” is Trecartin and Fitch’s first solo exhibition in the UK, and is a revamp of a previous installation: a commissioned work for the Encyclopaedic Palace at the Venice Biennale in 2013. In “Item Falls” (2013), reality television hopefuls audition for a gaming system, all the while trapped in a nightmarish house in which competition seems the only alternative, even if it promises no escape from limbo. Like some apocalyptic Big Brother sleepover, with the addition of animated stunt chickens and floating Second Life alternate selves, humans wreak war on their own free will in order to evolve into a new form of animation. The promises of that final goal seem irresistible– either you get selected for the boy band, or become a Jenny (the archetypal all-American girl). In “Center Jenny”, a follow up to “Item Falls”, a group of girls called Jenny debate their hierarchical positions within the group. “Priority Innfield (Credits)” makes use of Trecartin’s love of CGI and animated text files, creating a high-speed frenetic movement of text reminiscent in tone to the graphic visual onslaught of Gaspar Noe’s opening credits in “Enter The Void”. It’s also a nice ‘thank you’ to his impressive coterie of artistic collaborators.
Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Priority Innfield, 2013. Installation view Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2014. Photo: Stuart Whipps.
“Junior War” is a central nexus of the show. A movie recorded by Trecartin in junior high in rural Ohio (in the autumn of 1999), it uses night vision equipment to record a bunch of teenagers getting up to “Jackass”-style scrapes, vomiting, smoking spliffs and boasting about their escapades. Trecartin bought his camera after seeing The Blair Witch Project and the result is as chilling as it is entertaining.
Trecartin and Fitch are clearly in love with the dross of the internet – the glitches and beeps, the flat shine, the sound loop and ringtone, the theme tune, the autotune, and the cartoon. “Priority Innfield” may be intended as a headfuck, but it still feels overladen. There’s too much to work through in one visit. And the harsh colours, the loud screams and the pointedly digitally-influenced non-narrative threads start to grate before you’ve reached the end. Trecartin and Fitch have successfully turned the Zabludowicz into a neon-green sorority nightmare for the posthuman age. Just keep a hold of those red cups, you might need them later.
Text by Sophia Satchell-Baeza
Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Tracartin‘s first UK solo show will run from 2 October until 21 December 2014
Read our investigation of youth identity in Trecartin and Fitch’s work in Sleek 43, Youth/Truth
Read more art reviews and interviews