One change to the "Abstract Horror" video/performance lineup at Galapagos two days ago: Jillian McDonald showed her vid Screaming rather than the piece scheduled. It was a hoot, literally. She digitally inserts herself into peak moments in horror films, usually some ultra-disgusting transformation scene or "final shock before the credits," and screams her head off. She has cleverly picked moments in all the films where the beastie bolts off camera right after its monstrous appearance (for example, the chestbuster's 23 skidoo in Alien), so her screams appear to be aggressive rather than defensive, frightening the monster off. I'll leave to feminist scholars the explication that this is a reversal of the usual domination scenario implicit in commercial horror films and just say that it's McDonald's dry humor that saves it from an art-deadening abundance of social agenda. Her facial expressions immediately before and after The Scream--and there are a lot of Screams in this video--say, respectively, "Oh, God, another posturing prick to be dealt with" and "What the fuck was that about?"
