Yesterday evening I saw Reid Farrington’s The Passion Project at P.S. 122 in the East Village. On his website, Farrington describes it as “an archival film experiment,” and it comes across like an installation with a live component: The audience stands and is free to move around performer Shelley Kay, who herself moves within a small space delineated by ropes, hanging up then taking down screens/scrims onto which scenes from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic 1928 silent, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, are projected. The technical feat is nothing to sniff at, as Kay must follow myriad cues. Weirdly enough, however, a little improvised scene among the spectators abruptly emulated the confrontation of 2008 technology with 80-years-old images. Within a few minutes, I noticed a young man busily texting a few feet away from me. I stared at him, dumbfounded. We’re watching someone painstakingly performing along to scenes from one of the most striking movies ever made, and he’s texting? read more
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