The Projectionist

The Projectionist is the third installment of The Way of the World, a Queer Film Action by Jerry Tartaglia

world premiere: late autumn, 2011

GO HERE TO SEE SOME IMAGES

The purpose of The Way of the World is simply to shed some light on the two most significant social occurrences affecting Queer consciousness in the past 50 years: the failed response to the implications of the A.I.D.S. epidemic on sexual identities, and the compulsion to assimilate into the normative, warrior hetero-culture.

Queer “spirit” or consciousness began to find its articulation in western culture in 19^th century Europe among women and men who formulated identity in their own terms. Since that time, the warrior-exploiters have attempted to persecute and eradicate; then to erase and distort; then to assimilate and manipulate the gentle people who hold within us the balance to human chaos.

Cinema, too, has undergone a similar fate at the hands of the mercantile art world. The compulsion to turn the moving image media into a commodity for fixed consumption parallels the devolution of Queer spirit in the West.

These two trends are countered in several ways in The Way of the World, and the most obvious thematic occurrences are in the visibility of images of queer lovemaking (usually perceived by the heterocentric mind as “pornography”) and in the challenges to the conventional screening situation.

The form and content of the work challenge the viewers’ expectations in the simultaneous multi projections. The audience must also interact with the celluloid film material as it is passed to them, and deal with living people in the midst of a "film screening." The aroma of vinegar conjures an imaginary threat to the safety of the situation and they are required to read text and assimilate its meaning in the context of projected sexual imagery that provokes a criticism of Hetero-centric culture.

It is my hope that The Way of the World will stimulate an examination of the issues of audience involvement in the creative process, and in doing so through a Queer identified work, will bridge the gap that is created by hetero-centric definitions of identity.

Jerry Tartaglia, 2011