Teaser for Magical Thinking (In Production) by Laura Parnes
Magic Thinking
2023-Present (In Production)
Magic Thinking is a multi-channel film installation steeped in the current moment where climate catastrophe, the COVID pandemic, and the rise of fundamentalism combine to contribute to an apocalyptic aura. With this aura, magical thinking can become a survival strategy.
“In the search for certainty, many are willing to bend the rules of logic to find a story that can save us. And there are so many options to choose from: from wellness influencers who promise you can yoga your way past a pandemic to preppers who declare at least you and yours can be safe with the right arsenal and emergency meal kits. In the past few years, I have become fascinated with how the cultish stories spun by ‘wellness’ devotees have come to mirror the extremism seen on the far right.
I focus my work on people on the margins of the mainstream, but never before have ideas once discounted as crackpot conspiracy theories had more currency and power than in our present moment.
Magic Thinking is a film installation that follows the relationship between Doug (Becca Blackwell), a human optimizer, and Nancy (Laine Rettmer), a meditation class teacher, as they grasp for certainty in the face of unrest. Their spiritual journey is tainted by hyper-masculine self-help gurus, burned-out ex-climate activists, psychedelic-pushing big tech entrepreneurs, and viciously Darwin-obsessed wellness influencers. As they search for truth, the limits of self-actualization for collective survival become increasingly clear.
I think of Magic Thinking as a sister project to my earlier work, Blood and Guts in High School, a series of video installations based on Kathy Acker's brilliant punk feminist book of the same title. Like Blood and Guts, Magic Thinking combines cinematic strategies such as continuity and dialogue with highly stylized sets and performances to create a non-linear narrative.
As I was developing this project, I was inspired by the plays of Sarah Kane, who, like Acker, was a transgressive writer and counterculture hero. Kane's interest in juxtaposing personal power struggles with contemporary historical events is evident throughout her work—as it is in this project.
The radical vision of these writers is a source of inspiration, and their work has never been more relevant. We need critical narratives to parse our world, and we need artists to tell these stories, especially if we hope to do anything tangible to respond to the crises we face.”
-Laura Parnes, Director
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Becca Blackwell
Laine Rettmer
Jim Fletcher
Tom Cole
Special Appearances by:
Stephanie Barber
Drae Campbell
Macauley DeVun
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Ryan Harman
Andrew Haynes
David Everitt Howe
Craig Hunter
Baseera Khan
Jesse Lenat
Sidian Liu
Alison Nguyen
Stephanie Vella
And more -
Laura Parnes
Writer/Director/Editor
Jeffrey Akers
Director of Photography
Liz Zito
Director of Photography
William Basinski
Composer
Caroline Mills
Hair and Special FX Make-up Artist
Alison Tyne
Photographer
Adam Wolcott Smith
Sound Recordist
Ayla Argentina
Wardrobe
Joshua Howard
Production Assistant -
Michelle Handelman
Liselot van der Heijden
Colleen Keegan
Marcia Basset
Christen Diane Clifford
Tom Cole
Nicholas Croft
Marianna Ellenberg
Johanna Fateman
Erik Levine
Jen Liu
Milton Parnes
David Shaw
Enat Sidi
Jude Tallichet
Catherine Taylor
Lauren Wittels
Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Michael Waugh
Seagull Hair Salon
Michelle Leftheris
Patty Chang
Jackie Goss
Chris Sullivan
Philip Stanton
Bari Pearlman
Adam Parnes
Christian Perez
Elisabeth Subrin
Jennifer Reeder
Kara Hammond
Justine Kurland
Hal Hartley
Quentin Chiappetta
Amanda Trager
Shelley Marlow
Jane Harris
Barry Hoggard and James Wagner
Karina Skvirsky
eteam
Scott Propeack
Siobhan
Linda Parnes
Emma Rose Milligan
Rachel Lowther
Rachel Law & McKenzie Wark
Cecelia Condit
Stephanie Barber
Cecilia Dougherty
Ariel Kavoussi
Aline alinelillie@gmail.com Lillie?
Anthony Banua-Simon
Matthew Papa
Victoria Keddie
Elise McCave
Howard Covitz
Eric Heist
Lisa Kirk
Kazumi Tanaka
E.V. Day
Marsha Pels
Claudia Joskowicz
Mary Patierno
Gibson Frazier
Adam Bell
Becca Albee
Linda Nagaoka
Ben Coonley
Furen Dai
Challiss McDonough
M M Lum
Stephanie Vella
Alison Nguyen
Scott Macaulay
Leslie Brack
Liz Deschenes
Coco Fusco
Sara Reisman
Robert Boyd
Kirsten Hassenfeld
Matt Wolf
Momoyo Torimitsu
Hedi el Kholti
Jongsma + O'Neill
Ruth Kahn
Every Ocean Hughes
Veronica Gonzalez Peña
Calvin Reid
Ed Halter
Matthew Weinstein
R.H. Quaytman
Jim Finn
Jody Culkin
David Dominique
Kristin Lucas
Jonathan David Smyth
Christopher Wilcha
Alissa Bennett
Wendy Vogel
MK Guth
Joan Linder
Abina Manning
Jill H. Casid
Peter Burr
Bang Geul Han
Ellen F Salpeter
Tianyi Zhang
Anoka Faruqee
Jenn Dierdorf
Esther Drill
Ana Wolovick
Robert Ransick
Heidi Schlatter
Steve Reinke
Robert Seng
Алексей Ковалёв
Alex Stevens
Janey
Phyllis Baldino
Allen Weiner
David
Liza McLaughlin
Laura Larson
Erik Moskowitz
Natalie Moore
J Tolentino & Stosh Fila/Pigpen
Tom Colley
Elke Lehmann
Thu Nguyen
Peggy A
Rafael Sånchez
Shane McCarthy
A.L. Steiner
Cat Tyc
Carolyn Lambert
Chelsea Spengemann
David B Frye
Daniel Gibbons
Sam Green
Yusheng Jiang
Jennifer Dalton
Patty Suarez
Anna Prokop
Nicole Eisenman
Janet Biggs
Tommy Nguyen
Margo Margolas
Lucas Blalock
Robin Graubard
Jennie Livingston
Amelia Saul
Shelly Silver
Kerry Gaertner Gerbracht
JD Samson
Jeff Preiss
Tamara Gayer
Chloe Bass
Deborah Stratman
Zachary Vanes
Sur Rodney Sur
JP Cohen
Amy Jenkins
Nicola Tyson
Jiuxun Jin
Guy Richards Smit
Amy Weil
Lorenzo De Los Angeles
Randall Heath
Natasha Chuk
Torsten Zenas Burns
Amy Sillman
Ann Pibal
Dinny Shaw
Cook Shaw
Elizabeth Barnes
Jonathan Essa
Aric Parnes
Cheryl Donegan
Maura Jasper
Elaine Angelopoulos
Jeanette Spicer
Thalia Feilen
Mark Alice Durant
Alice O'Malley
Barbara Ferguson
Mike Monteiro
Tara Sansone
Craig Kalpakjian
Mary Billyou
Jim Christensen
Rory Mulligan
Matthew D Gantt
Kathleen Goncharov
Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker
Natalie Zaman
Pamela Lins
Jeffrey Akers
Alexandro Segade
Morgan Mueller
Tatiana Kronberg
Collin
Jeffrey Walkowiak
Ru Marshall
Bailey Georges
Tooraj Khamenehzadeh
Darrin Martin
Gail Thacker
Andrea Gibbons
Marina Zurkow
Miguel Venturra
Barbara Pollack
Lia Gangitano
David Schlaegel
Jiwon Choi
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Abigail Simon
Elizabeth Senja Spackman
David Everitt Howe
Mari Spirito