Laura Parnes in Person

Bigger isn't always better, but it can be. With these dual-projector works, the expansion of space is just one benefit, the agitation of narrative form being the grander gain. Le Tigre supplies the music for Cecilia Dougherty's Gone (36:45 mins), a verdant tribute to marginal art culture in New York City. Ever the wise prankster, Dougherty reconstitutes an episode from the seventies proto-reality-TV series An American Family as grist for her millennial drama. Gender is also reconstituted as girls play boys, most markedly with the "character" of Lance Loud, probably the first person to come out on primetime TV. Dougherty recounts the episode, "talking" across two plush pictures in which scenes are conceptually scattered - dual images contradicting, elaborating, or twinning in lush pixelization. Laura Parnes's Hollywood Inferno: Episode One (38 mins) eschews urbanity for the candy-colored suburbs of SoCal. Her Dante, Sandy, a young store clerk, is taken under the tutelage of a modern-day Virgil, a screenwriter who does deep readings of Star Wars. Sandy's career path leads her through a tormented landscape of perky Catholic models, lecherous Furbies, and Insane Clown Posse wannabes. The principal sin in this ring of Hell is voyeurism, experienced through a plethora of peepholes. The split-screen of Hollywood Inferno makes it clear that there are two sides to any point of view.