An ambitious work of speculative fiction, David Blair's Wax is a highly adventurous electronic narrative, combining pseudo-history, metaphysics, apiary trivia, an otherworldly humor, and advanced video technology. The story is set in Alamogordo, New Mexico where Jacob Maker designs gunsight displays at a flight-simulation facility. In his spare time, he tends hives filled with "Mesopotamian" bees inherited from his grandfather, a beekeeper with a dubious history. Eventually, the bees "communicate" the presence of a second reality occupied by the spirits of the future. Mesmerized by this new knowledge, Jacob Maker is led away from his home to the supra-normal world of the bees, a nether cave existing below the Trinity Test Site. A New York-based artist, Blair has made extensive use of new video techniques, producing graphically fluid transitions between the tape's many "realities." Fantastical shifts in imagery are subtly fused through electronic synthesis. This is not a conventional use of special effects, but rather an attempt to fabricate a completely imaginative realm. In Wax, the speculative world of the bees has the same seamless veracity as Jacob Maker's earth-bound reality. All planes of existence are equally verified by the overarching context of electronic space. To heighten this neo-authenticity, Blair anchors the story itself with historical events, trumped-up scientific jargon, and archival footage. Perhaps Wax points toward the waning of the traditional story. --Steve Seid