Business as Usual

Vision. Leadership. Expertise. Monster. Who the hell is running things anyway? Is he man or beast, machine or god? Toronto, New York, London, Tokyo – “BUSINESS AS USUAL” invites you along for a psychotic ride through the financial power capitals of the world. Witness the omnipresent executive citizen as he (it) imitates you with his bizarre rituals of behavioral dysfunction. Description – “BUSINESS AS USUAL” If a Corporation were to be embodied in a human being, how would it act? What would it do? What would it look like? Described as an art-film version of ‘The Corporation’, “BUSINESS AS USUAL” presents unusual representations through a more than usual character; the generic businessman. Gestures were filmed in front of stock exchange buildings in TORONTO (TSX), NEW YORK (NYSE), LONDON (FTSE) AND TOKYO (TSE) and edited as a collage-in-motion, combining location, gesture and image manipulation. The actions executed in each city reflect themes relating to the icon of the businessman, his costume, his behavior and his relationship to the historic symbols of money, but each theme is somehow contaminated. In Toronto many of the same businessman repeat a robotic nod of the head, surrounding the perimeter of the TSX, suggesting the easily reproducible image of the businessman. In London the icon has become head-less, frantically executing hand signs from the trading floor of the stock exchange. In Tokyo the businessman-icon becomes as digital as the screen he is examining inside the TSE. In New York he fondles a large wad of bills until they are blown all over Wall St. “BUSINESS AS USUAL” reveals the grotesquely human nature of the executive citizen and questions the threatening prevalence of global economic markets as the new world culture. “BUSINESS AS USUAL” is being developed into an installation version, which will include the original short film, as well as black and white 35mm photographs from Berlin, Seoul, Buenos Aires, and manipulated photographs from London.