The Dark, Krystle

Overview

Much like Adult Swim's recent viral and uber creepy video 'Too Many Cooks', artist Michael Robinson takes TV soap opera repetition to its strange, humorous and terrible extremes.

His 2013 collage video, The Dark, Krystle uses the montage and the emotional cues of personal memory to create new meaning out of cliches and disparate elements. Robinson, who is known for appropriating recently discarded remnants of popular culture and crafting new and startling contemporary works, continues with his mission in his most recent exhibition.

For The Dark, Krystle Robinson collected and reedited clips of female protagonists Krystle and Alexis Carrington from American sitcom Dynasty (circa 1970-1) - particularly focusing on their repetitive 'signature' gestures - which outlasted many a costume and hair change. These stock gestures are re-purposed into a montage by Robinson in order to let viewers "see its hollowness and feel it recharging with new emotional power", according to its press release. Partially a superfluous archive of fashion, partially a feminist critique, the film piece takes on the idea of consumption and identity in the excessively consumerist '80s.

Michael Robinson is an American film and video artist whose work has screened internationally at various festivals, cinemas, museums and cinematheques. He was listed as one of the top ten avant-garde filmmakers of the 2000's by Film Comment magazine.