ALMOST PARADISE

Tyler Brett, Almost Paradise, 2024. 8 minute video projection loop & instrumental sound track.

'I thought that dreams belonged to other men, because each time I get close they'd fall apart again.'  

Agency of subjects

Power within landscapes of struggle

Communal work processes

Spectacle of demolition

Spectacle of radical transformation

Wrecking material objects

Recreating disasters

Cheap entertainment

Lust for destruction

Planned obsolescence

Aesthetic retooling


Organic use of detritus

Transgressive creativity

Wills, needs & desires

Biological limits

Waged bodies

Precarity & security

Consumer dissatisfaction

Envy

Emotion & Desire

Made & remade

Fodder for destruction


Salariat

Precarity & capital

Logic on the landscape

Pasture land

Scientific farming

Bread & butter

Salvaged commuter cars 

Competitive cars

Stylized violence & aggression

Surplus Value

Debilitation of mobility



Labour providing leisure time and access to materials 

Skills & tools

Independence & ingenuity

Meritocracy & communitarianism

Arenas, grandstands & backless plank bleachers 

Mobility of meaning

Rebuilt material environment for own uses

Intentional collisions 

Disable competitors

Final heats

Last car moving

Almost Paradise... instrumental adaptation of the love theme from the movie Footloose performed by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson. Songwriter(s) Eric Carmen (music) & Dean Pitchford (lyrics).

Lists derived from Demolition Derby, Working-Class Identity, and Capitalist Geographies by Billy Williams. Journal of Working-Class Studies, Vol 8 Issue 1, June 2023.