Comforting & Familiar

for video
commissioned by line upon line

Comforting & Familiar (2020) is a short visual media work that consists of re-sequenced video clips featuring the musicians in the percussion trio Line Upon Line. When asked to film themselves improvising for two minutes in any manner they desired, the group submitted a diverse collection. Yet despite the differences, tangible thematic connections emerged, including a preoccupation with domesticity, innocence, childlike whimsicalness, and above all, a nostalgic yearning for a bygone past.

It was this last association that motivated the virtual addition of a well-known segment of then presidential candidate Bill Clinton playing saxophone on the Arsenio Hall TV show. With little money left in his campaign, the appearance on the popular late night show in 1992 was at the time a daring attempt to attract young voters. Light-hearted publicity stunts of this nature have become cemented in the nation’s collective archive of nostalgia. These memories superficially represent the veneer of a simpler time and perhaps allow us to forget that the policies and selfish actions of our elected officials are ultimately leading us down a path of precipitous decline. With the growing wealth imbalance and the US government’s demonstrated failure at providing basic services for its citizens amid the coronavirus pandemic, we turn to these comforting and familiar episodes of our past as a form of escapism.