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Stupa

Ken Kobland

1992 01:00:46 United StatesEnglishB&WMono4:3Video
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Description

A one-hour heliocopter flight over the suburban sprawl of Long Island to Fresh Kills, the New York City Landfill on Staten Island; accompanied by an operatic audio-mix of bad-mouth talk-radio mayhem and historic nostalgia.

"Commissioned by La Sept, Paris to create a one-hour continuous camera take, Stupa is a 'mourning' commute from suburban Long Island to the New York City landfill. The audio-mix is composed of radio talk shows, JFK speeches, the soundtrack from It's a Wonderful Life, a hodge-podge of music and TV soaps. In the end it's pretty much an elegy to JFK.A one-hour heliocopter flight over the suburban sprawl of Long Island to Fresh Kills, the New York City Landfill on Staten Island; accompanied by an operatic audio-mix of bad-mouth talk-radio mayhem and historic nostalgia. "Commissioned by La Sept, Paris to create a one-hour continuous camera take, Stupa is a 'mourning' commute from suburban Long Island to the New York City landfill. The audio-mix is composed of radio talk shows, JFK speeches, the soundtrack from It's a Wonderful Life, a hodge-podge of music and TV soaps. In the end it's pretty much an elegy to JFK. Forgive me, but he just gets bigger and bigger as we go on." -Ken Kobland

About Ken Kobland

Ken Kobland has been working in various aspects of film and video since 1971, creating productions in collaboration with performing artists such as Philip Glass, the Wooster Group, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Spalding Gray. His work explores a variety of themes and issues, often embracing a photographic aesthetic within the context of video. Beautifully edited, his work merges diaristic and documentary categories, presenting an art of video that approximates photo-journalism. He is a recipient of the 1986 Berlin Artist in Residence Fellowship (DAAD) and has received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.