Jordan Biren in Person

The suburbs are a place of charmed suspension. In Zakery Weiss's Domestica (2002, 18 mins), an aging bodybuilder recollects his pumped prime as he wanders about his home posing. His preening passage through this setting is like some robust ritual used to hold back time. Outside, an uncertain energy levitates above his roof. Jennifer Reeder's unnerving A Room with the Walls Blasted to Shreds and Falling (2001, 34 mins) gazes at a suburb smothered in mystery. Like a still-life with motion, the tidy streets, mesmerizing traffic, and spruce interiors suggest that some epiphany will soon disrupt the subdivision. In Jordan Biren's From Here Home (2000, 30:25 mins), we observe a family's tempestuous moods glancing off the trim surfaces of their habitation. Renegade emotions, rendered in chiaroscuro lighting, fill the house to brimming. Erika Suderburg's Waiting for Transmission (1997, 4:20 mins) has a naked woman swimming laps while pondering the sky above. Her aqueous dream of intervention, divine or otherwise, whiles away the time.