what can we learn from atlantis?
A performance, a lecture, a video.
A curious portrait of the growing obsession with a lost civilization.
A building stands, geometric and sparkling in the sunlight. Its slick panels and rafters rise straight out of the cracked concrete, filth, noise, raunch and desolation of a neighborhood block. Its multiple faces crane towards the sky, reflecting the clouds. I call the building Atlantis Tower.
Atlantis Tower hovers as a beacon of transcendence and destruction, embodying its role in a narrative that has been inspired by a discriminating, yet indiscriminate search for the story that eventually ends all stories. This is a portrait of the Atlantis "drive." Beginning with Plato and extending to the depths of ocean off the continental coasts, to outer-space, mystics, historians, explorers, archeologists, nazis, and the channeled spirit of a teenage boy named Eric, the Atlantis “drive” is all around us, and it appears to be increasing.
Video with voiceover from media used for live performance. Clip 4:25min, TRT 12 Min