Greed is Good.

A collaborative exhibition as part of [ fladry + jones ] dealing with corporate greed, corruption, and the coming collapse of America as we know it.

At the center of the exhibit was the speech from the 1997 film Wall Street. The speech was slowed down to about 50% of what it was originally recorded at. In doing this, it was hoped that the listener would get a sense of fatness from the speaker, commenting in an undefined way on the greediness that exist in corporations. The far wall of the exhibition space was covered in offest prints of $2 bills. These two-dollar bills were absent of text, heavily stylized and the face of President Thomas Jefferson seemingly scratched out; the color of the bill was red instead of green and yellow instead of white. The $2 bill was chosen because of its uncommon existence as common currency. There was also a stack of these posters sitting on the floor when you enter the space, as viewers were allowed to take home a piece of this currency.

Fifty one dollar bills were placed on the walls of the exhibition space and were marked with a corporation name and the dollar amount of a fine or settlement that the company was forced to pay because of unethical business practices. A PowerPoint presentation of companies’ names and fine amounts were also shown in the space. Lastly, a video of Bernie Madoff being escorted to a police car in handcuffs accompanies the Greed is Good speech. Madoff being the poster child for corporate greed, helped to put a face to the exhibition. [September 2009]

Greed is Good. {post-op}

So the show has gone up and down this week.. a quick turnaround is the name of the game. Here are a few photos from the reception.. Barry and I will be doing a performance in Tampa on October 8th and then again on October 23rd in Mobile Alabama at SECAC.. then where will F+J be? I’m not sure.. either are you.

Feel free to visit the site and download all the collateral from the show and remix, redit, and reinvent. I’ll be adding to fladryplusjones.com and this weekend I’ll be sending out posters to those of you who sent your address to us via the Twitter account twitter.com/fladryplusjones.

Special thanks to all who helped get this show in order, without you I would have been sitting around with a box of posters on the ground. Also thanks to Chris Otten for the photos.

Micro

On December 10, 2008 Robb Fladry and Barry R. Jones, [ fladry + jones ] joined up for a live online collaboration with fellow media artist Jason Sloan. The December 10th collaboration was a live, online convergence joining our geographic dislocation (Fladry in Tampa Florida, Jones in Nashville, Tennessee and Sloan in Baltimore, Maryland). MICRO loosely addressed the theme of “human rights” since by coincidence the day of the performance happened to be human rights day. MICRO incorporated the manipulation of live streaming video and a live twitter feed filtered for posts addressing human rights overlay the video. [December 2008]

Marilyn [redux]

The Adding Machine

The Adding Machine : A Multimedia Exploration in Seven Acts served as my thesis project for my Master of Arts from Austin Peay State University.

Written by Elmer Rice.
Directed by Robb Fladry.

Starring – Bryce Conner, Jolie Hausman, Collin Christopher, Britney Smith, Charles Young, B. Chris Hardin, Beth Warhurst, Steven Bennett, Adam Combs

Produced by Leni A. Dyer.
Set Design – David Brandon.
Costume Design – Shelley Fladry.
Lighting Design – Michael Kelley.
Sound Design & Original Music – Aaron Hutcheson.
Video Design – [ Fladry + Jones ].
State Management – Rebecca Beasley.

Documentation video shot by Alex Ewin.

The Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, and is generally considered to be the first American Expressionist play. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss. He is then tried for murder and is found guilty. He is then hanged and wakes up in an almost heaven-like setting known as “The Elysian Fields.” Mr. Zero then begins to operate an adding machine, until Lieutenant Charles, the boss of the Elysian Fields, comes to tell Zero that he is a waste of space and his soul is going to be sent back to the earth to be reused. The play ends with Zero following a very attractive girl named Hope off stage, who might not actually exist. [April 2008]