:/nterstellar, 2015
Single-channel video, color, sound. 11:11 minutes.
:/nterstellar is an essay video that appropriates footage from the 2014 film Interstellar, starring Jessica Chastain. :/nterstellar retells the plot of the original film from the point of view of Chastain’s character, a girl whose father leaves at the beginning of the story. The relation between father and daughter is explored by analyzing a series of metaphors from the film. In an early scene, Chastain’s character encounters a drone, defined as “an unmanned object, operated from a remote location.” The logic of drones becomes the logic of girls, in the thrall of their “remote” fathers. The structure of metaphor, governed by mediation, characterizes Chastain’s role in the film: always acting, but never under her own power.
Maura Brewer is a video artist. She makes essay videos that explore the intersection of feminism and capitalism through the lens of popular culture. In addition to her work in video she is a cofounder of the Rational Dress Society, an experimental design collective. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA and Art in General in New York, the MCA in Chicago, and MUMOK in Vienna, and has received press coverage in The Paris Review, CBS News and the Guardian. She is a recipient of the LENS Photography Council Award at LACMA, a CEDF grantee at CCI and the Fellowship for Visual Arts at CCF. She received her undergraduate degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from UC Irvine in 2011.