DAD DAD DAD is a three-channel collaborative video installation by Maura Brewer and Paul Pescador that takes Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining as a site of analysis. The first channel is a short, essayistic video that examines the relationship between the characters in The Shining and the Steadicam technology used to film their actions. In 1980, the Steadicam was a new technology that combined the stability of the tripod with the freedom of movement of hand-held film. In The Shining, Kubrick deploys the Steadicam both to track the action unfolding onscreen and as a point of view device, elevating the characters outside the confines of their physical bodies. The second channel is a narrative interpretation of The Shining, in which puppets made out newspaper and Styrofoam move through interiors, each mimicking a series domestic activities (cooking, masturbating and watching television.) Shifting between handheld camera and found footage, an underlying tone of violence and perversity builds. The final channel is an overlay of the previous two, which heightens the relationship between animate and inanimate actors. The mechanism of the moving camera becomes a character, functioning like a ventriloquist who both observes and enables the narrative action. Power dynamics between camera operator and subject become a metaphor for the relationship between father and child.

This film will screen for one day only on Father’s Day.