EILEEN MAXSON

Reality Bites is a body of work first exhibited at Microscope Gallery, NYC, July 10, 2015 – August 16, 2015.

New video, installation and photo-based works pose the 1994 film, or more specifically, the artist’s VHS copy of the film “Reality Bites” as a point of origin for social, economic, and technological concerns of today.

Maxson re-renders the film as objects and images titled, like that of the exhibition, with famous quotes from the “Gen X” film that represent the movie’s central themes. Most significant to Maxson are the mediation and commodification of identity, the possibility of artistic authenticity in a commercialized world, and power in relationships, especially labor, across ages, sexes, and borders.

Evian Is Naive Spelled Backwards, a double-sided 3 by 160 inch register receipt, features the images the artist received from workers she hired on the anonymous outsourced labor site mechanicalturk.com to take and send her their self-portraits. The work includes false images obviously lifted from the internet, sent in response to her first “naïve” attempt to find out who these workers were well as real photos from her subsequent requests requiring those responding to take two pictures of themselves holding homemade banners with the words “NAIVE” and “EVIAN” respectively.

Similarly, for the 33-minute video I Know it When I See It (Define Irony), Maxson recreates the iconic “Reality Bites” scene in which the main character played by Winona Ryder is stumped by the final question of a job interview asked as she’s entering the elevator: “Define irony”. The result is a non-traditional documentary of forty-four women who responded to her ad to “answer a single question on camera”. As in the movie, they only have limited time to do so – the time it takes for the door to close.

Other works find Maxson transposing branding and advertising techniques and imagery into philosophical questions and experiences. For example, the interactive video work 1-804-410-KNOW re-imagines the opening sequence of the film as a closed-captioned, television commercial for a pay-per-call phone line. An image of Earth, recalling the Universal Pictures’ logo, rotates on screen while anxious text scrolls forward. The video ends with uncertainty “what are we going to do now?” If dialed the caller receives a text from the artist that echos the original script.

UNWRAPPING "REALITY BITES" ON VHS, 2015
Single-Channel, HD Video, Color, Sound, 10:25 min

I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT (DEFINE IRONY), 2015
Single-Channel, HD Video, Color, Sound, 34:33 min

Forty-five women are challenged to "define irony" in the same span of time given to Winona's Ryder in "Reality Bites".

EVIAN IS NAIVE SPELLED BACKWARDS, 2015
Double-Sided, Archival Inkjet Print, 3 x 160 inches

Dialogue from the film "Reality Bites" is repurposed as instructions for capturing anonymous internet laborers' self-portraits. In response to these instructions, two categories of images were received from workers: sincerely rendered portraits and random jpgs. A selection of these images, eighty in total, and accompanying text are printed as a two-sided, adjoined, and absurdly long register receipt. 

LINE IN THE SANDS OF COOLNESS,  2015
Two Silk Screen Prints on Paper, Metal Stand, 50 x 22.5 x 10 inches

Dialogue:

"Have I stepped over some line in the sands of coolness with you?"
- Michael

1-804-410-KNOW, 2015
Single-Channel SD Video, Color, Sound, 01:27 seconds

The opening sequence of Reality Bites is reconstituted into an advertisement for a pay-per-call phone line. When contacted a response is sent by text message that echoes the original script.

DEAL WITH THE RESULTS (HIV), 2015
Single-Channel SD Video, Color,
Silent, 03:03 seconds

The letters HIV are embedded in television static as a stereogram, or "magic eye" illusion.

Dialogue:

"Every time I sneeze it's like I'm four sneezes away from the hospice. And it's like it's not even happening to me. It's like I'm watching it on some crappy show."
- Vickie

"You're gonna have to deal with the results. Whatever they are, we're gonna have to deal with them."
- Lelaina

REALITY BITES, 2012
Archival Inkjet Print,  Wooden Tacks, 33 x 47 inches