Cowboy Town
Experimental Documentary, three channel video installation

Fall 2018

Super 8mm film, digital video

Link to video documentation 

The goals of my experimental documentary, Cowboy Town, are to explore the concepts of community, authenticity, and documentary. Funded by a Research, Creative, and Scholarly Activates Grant through the Office of High-Impact Practices I have had the opportunity to work closely with my faculty mentor, David Webber, and explore a new medium that I otherwise would not have been able to afford (Super 8mm). Inspired by the histories and theories of avant-garde cinema written by James Peterson in their book Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order and the work of Bill Brown, and in particular his experimental Super 8mm documentary Buffalo Commons, I seek to create a work which fits within the history of contemporary video art. Cowboy Town exists as a three channel video installation that documents the Oklahoma City DIY-punk music community, a community that exists outside of traditional music business practices by blurring the lines between audience and musician and the use of non-traditional spaces for performances. Cowboy Town subverts traditional methods of documentary film-making by inviting strangers, played by Chloe Sullivan and Joshua Forster, into the community and focusing on their experience. By emphasizing the strangers I have avoided appropriating the experiences of these amateur artists and musicians into cultural capital which preserves the integrity of the community. Authenticity is questioned as Super 8mm, an expensive and historic medium, is used to document a farce as both strangers were asked to play character interpretations of the punk rockers that surrounded them.