Statement Parking Lot Dance is a 4 minute, surround-projected, 4-channel video loop. Filling a strip mall parking lot, thousands of duplicated dancers march, shoot guns, wave flags and writhe to a dark dance club beat. The video is a dream sequence and a response to our over-the-top, self-infatuated American shopping culture. One part ceremony, one part protest, one part broadway chorus line - the parking lot is reimagined as a surreal video canvas for digitally generated choreography.
Bio Clay's work is inspired by the glitz, heavy-handedness, and contradictory nature of our modern corporate culture and how individuals express themselves in it's grip. In a reactionary mainstream, Americans fail to critically engage with current events and instead respond with fear, superficial rhetoric and violent words and actions. How do personal identifies shift in this rigid, hyper global, and hyperspeed consumerist, internet-augmented culture. What are borders, both personal and national, in the information age? While new internet companies learn how to tame user creativity and maximize online advertising profits and product sales, Clay hopes to expose and leverage new technologies and digital techniques to create open ended, "grey zone" experiences. He takes influence from his time spent between the USA and Latin America, from growing up hiking in the national forest, and a from longstanding obsession with hollywood visual effects.
Clay received a Bachelor of Arts in Art from Reed College, Portland, Oregon. www.paul-clay.com
