Last week, a battle loomed over midtown Manhattan. Artist Mark Stilwell occupied our 266 West 37th Street gallery space, and used it as a location for his ongoing sci-fi performance The Super Defense Force vs. the Tittanno Beasts. The project is collaborative multimedia performance several years in the making, involving monsters and robots in conflict in scale model city sets, which are all created from cardboard and recycled materials. We chatted with Mark about it.
Alex Teplitzky: What's the story and what's the story behind the story?
Mark Stilwell: "The Super Defense Force vs the Tittanno Beasts," on the surface, seems to be a standard science fiction scenario in which a super squad of military robotic defenders rise up to battle a global giant monster epidemic. Max Salvo, the supreme commander of the Super Defense Force and Kungra, the evil master mind of the Tittanno Beasts make dueling television proclamations that drive the narratives but also hint at themes of apocalyptic anxieties, militarism, terrorism and expanding class disparities. Max Salvo seems to also be a spokesman for a robot protected luxury condominium fortress called Newtopia which are only offered for first class citizens. Many of his speeches about Kungra are taken almost verbatim from George Bush Jr. speeches about Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden while Kungra"s addresses incorporate manifestos from Al Qaeda, leftist rhetoric, and biblical overtones. The Super Defense Force vs the Tittanno Beasts takes most of its inspiration from Japanese pop culture including giant monster movies and Robot animation. The idea germinated after the wake of the second Gulf War. It seemed like a good time to return to my childhood escapist fantasies based on my love for robots and monsters and incorporate them into my art. It also made sense to take influence from Japanese science fiction in that it heavily references the centuries of war, disasters and upheaval. Despite the references to the darker aspects of society, our project is overall, intended to be an entertaining vehicle for the expansive imagination.
Alex: Your art projects are multimedia performances with stop motion animation, cardboard sculptures, experimental music and sci-fi plots. How did you get in interested in all this media, and how are you able to tie it all together?
Mark: The focus of my art used to involve large scale installations of giant monsters and robots engaged in battle amongst small scale urban city sets, all made from cardboard and recycled materials. After creating these for some time, I felt as though the natural next progression was to make the robots and monsters come to life amongst the city setting. My own rituals and practices of making art needed to change as well as the art installations. No longer was I content to just work hermetically in my studio. "The Super Defense Force vs the Tittanno Beasts" became more of a collaborative effort, involving a rotating group of like-minded artists, musicians and writers. My wife Yoko Stilwell is one of two lead collaborators, who creates the music for the video segments, edits the videos, helps write, films the performances, and helps build cardboard structures with her architecture background. My friend Brian Olin performs a wide range of live experimental music ranging from dissident, melancholy, to the other worldly. The live music is completely devoid of irony and helps create a mood for the monsters and robots in the performance that can illicit a wide range of unexpected emotional responses. However, this being said, some people only respond to the performance on the level of enjoying the robots and monsters smashing each other and other stuff.
Alex: Can you tell me more about the project that took place last week?
Mark: We have an installation created from cardboard and recycled materials that depicts a Brooklyn inspired neighborhood with an elevated subway line and highway. Looming over this urban setting is a high rise luxury condominium unit that is still in the process of construction called "Skytopia." Robots stand guard over the luxury condos in towering platform structures.
Read more about Mark Stilwell and his ongoing performances on his website.
