Trees hide a multitude of sins
Two-channel video, silent, color
6:36 & 3:47 (looped)
2009
Single-channel mock-up:
Trees hide a multitude of sins is constructed entirely out of footage from the 1994 B-movie/Ice-T star vehicle Surviving the Game, an update of The Most Dangerous Game in which Ice-T is hunted as sport by a group of men. The launching point for the hunt is a scene in which Ice-T discovers his adversaries' motives, and burns down their hunting lodge as both distraction and retribution. This scene, in which Ice-T acts as a sort of vengeful anti-Prometheus, using fire to initiate agonistic narrative and social disintegration, provides the material for Trees hide a multitude of sins. The distinguishing marks of the characters have all been removed, reducing the actors to a series of flat cut-outs whose narrative propelling actions are reduced to episodic abstractions. Mimicking the Predator-effect of the eponymous film, Trees hide a multitude of sins trades in narrative excitement for crude special effects and clichéd trance-video aesthetics.