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RECKONING 3

Kent Lambert

2014 00:11:14 United StatesEnglishColorStereo16:9HD video
Tags:
Consumer culture, Found Footage, Hollywood, Video games

Description

RECKONING 3 is the first in a series of investigations into:

1. Terror and wonder in big-budget virtual worlds

2. The mutability, fragility and loneliness of technologically mediated social identities and friendships

3. The queerness and malevolence of archetypal masculinity

4. The diminishing distance between "real" and "artificial" humanity

5. The poetics of blockbuster aesthetics

RECKONING 3 is comprised largely of imagery and sound culled from over two years of Mac and Playstation 3 video game play. Some of this play was explorational, some was performative and much was anthropological in intent. The latter category of play was conducted in online multiplayer "shooter" games, in which numerous strangers (seemingly all male) drop in and out of play and communicate via headset microphones. Though I had the ability to communicate with these strangers through my own headset microphone, I was more or less paralyzed by horror and disorientation; I remained silent and documented my eavesdropping. RECKONING 3 is an attempt toward a lucid and expansive reflection on that disorientation.

Note: This title is intended by the artist to be viewed in High Definition. While DVD format is available to enable accessibility, VDB recommends presentation on Blu-ray or HD digital file.

About Kent Lambert

Kent Lambert is a Chicago-based musician and media artist. His creative output primarily consists of 1) vocal driven art-pop music and 2) pop-inflected video art made from repurposed industrial and commercial media. His ever-mutating band Roommate has been performing stateside and abroad for over a decade. Their fourth album MAKE LIKE was released in 2015.

Lambert on his work: 

In my music and video work, I search for intersections between 1) meditative interrogation of society and self 2) textural and tonal intrigue and beauty 3) absurdist and/or humanist humor and 4) cathartic emotional expression. A primary underlying motivation of my video work is to reflect, critique and ultimately transcend American zeitgeists and my own consumption within them.