Full-Color Video Compilation Livestream with Live Performance, 2021

Michelle Handelman x Shannon Funchess

Participant After Dark and PICA present Doomscrolling, a livestream video premiere of Michelle Handelman’s The Pandemic Series (2020-2021), with a live collaborative reading and performance between Handelman and musician/performer Shannon Funchess, co-founder of the band Light Asylum. Doomscrolling originally premiered on After Dark on May 22, 2021.

The Pandemic Series (2020-2021) recontextualizes characters from Michelle’s previous works into a hypnotic visual essay about the transfiguring of interiority during periods of isolation and fear.

It takes as its starting point the current Coronavirus pandemic and filters it through theorist Jill Casid’s writings on the necrocene—which Casid has described as living and dying on a dying planet—and Walter Benjamin’s writings on the difference between thresholds and boundaries.

Handelman's characters, who each have already struggled with existential questions of belonging and fear in her projects Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume (2009/11); Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013/15); and Hustlers & Empires (2018) are juxtaposed with found images and texts sourced during the pandemic to take on a new form that both denies and struggles with containment.

Concept, Videos and Live Performance by: Michelle Handelman

Live Perfomance: Shannon Funchess

Organized by: Lia Gangitano and Kristan Kennedy

Livestream Video Directed and Edited by: Glen Fogel and Michelle Handelman

Livestream Audio & Video Engineers: Lazar Bozic (NY) and Chris Balo (Portland)

Animation: Enrique Maitland

ASL Interpretation: Candance Davider


THE PANDEMIC SERIES
Director/Producer/Editor: Michelle Handelman

Cinematographer: Ed David

Performers: Quin Charity, Zackary Drucker, Shannon Funchess, K8 Hardy, John Kelly, Armen Ra, Viva Ruiz, Mother Flawless Sabrina, Sequinette

Costumes: Neon Music, Garo Sparo, Karen Young, Zaldy

Hair/Makeup: Michael Gwaltney, Armen Ra, Naomi Raddatz, Sequinette

Composers: Vincent Baker, Quentin Chiappetta, John Kelly, Jonathan Kreinik, Carol Lipnik, Stefan Tcherepnin