The Monstern!

Beck+Col

with

von curtis + James Crawford

Friday, September 21 8-­10PM performance at 9PM

Saturday, September 22 7-­9PM screenings at 8PM

The Monstern! is a performance, installation and film screening. During the performance, a dozen monsters attend a burlesque show at the Rainbow Saloon. A vicious bar fight erupts, continually interrupting the evening’s entertainment. Using the genre of the western, Beck+Col investigate the inherent violence of capitalism, the myth of american exceptionalism and the toxic masculinity ingrained within it.

The Western genre has historically been used as propaganda, romanticising America’s past. It reflects our pro­individual, pro­capital and pro­patriarchical system of values. The constant and repetitive violence in The Monstern addresses the ongoing brutality of American exceptionalism. Employing the spectacle, The Monstern is so Western, so violent­­ “it reminds us that capitalism is already violent, that under capitalism violence is ambient and systematic, and that capitalism will only yield through greater and different violence.”(1)Blood splatters almost constantly in the film. It opens with a tight shot of a monster being decapitated, a scene as visually disturbing as the sound of the snapping sinew that accompanies it.

In The Monstern!, there are no heroes­­only villains. It’s main character is America’s greatest export: violence. No one lives.

1. Steven, Mark. Splatter Capital: a Guide for Surviving the Horror Movie We Collectively Inhabit. Repeater, 2017.