Dopamine, 2020
Single-channel video
(4:20)
Dopamine was made shortly after the pandemic began from videos of moments that give a small hit of joy, an immediate sense of pleasure. Some are beautiful; others are funny, strange, or simply satisfying. These fragments preserve the feelings of noticing something wonderful before it disappears. Making the work helped me remember that even during a frightening and uncertain time, little things could still feel magical.
Failure to Launch (excerpt), 2016
Single-channel video
(01:41:18)
Exhibited in how2magpie, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX, 2016
Filmed at Challenger Seven Memorial Park in Houston, Failure to Launch follows a bag of ice tied to seven helium balloons. The plan was simple: as the ice melted, the bag would become light enough for the balloons to lift it off the ground and carry it into the sky. That never happened.
Instead of rising, the bag was pushed by the wind into the grass, where the balloons popped one by one. In a park dedicated to the seven astronauts lost aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, the result carries a dark poignancy the original plan never could have. The title is an honest account: not what was planned, but what happened.
Shown in full on a vertical monitor, the video runs more than an hour and a half and offers no promise of a payoff. Viewers decide for themselves how long to wait for a takeoff the title suggests may never come.
Press:
“Escaping the Narrative Trap of Video Art: David Politzer and Bradly Brown”,
Brandon Zech, Glasstire, May 21, 2016
Failure to Launch (excerpt) from Bradly Brown on Vimeo.