After the Decay of Decay, a New Modernity
The New York Times - February 7, 2004 by HERBERT MUSCHAMP
For those who want a souvenir of cultural wreckage, "Decasia: The State of Decay," Bill Morrison's 67-minute montage of decomposing nitrate film, has just been released on DVD. Already a cult classic, the movie is a time capsule of the postmodern obsession with decrepitude. What a space saver! Just pop this disc in the player and you'll have all the putrefaction you could ask for. Watch the Master Narratives Crumble! Entropy Now! Pomo's Greatest Hits!
The movie was originally shown, in November 2001, as the visual accompaniment to a symphony by Michael Gordon. In effect the "sight track" to a musical score, "Decasia" (Plexifilm) orchestrates a medley of burns, blots, water spots, scratches and figures that melt as voluptuously as Dali's clocks. Mr. Gordon's music is throbbing, industrial, precarious: an overture to an epilogue.
Watching the film you gain the impression that decay is itself decaying, sinking into obsolescence before your eyes. Sarah Boxer picked up on that metaphysical theme in her review of the movie in The New York Times in 2002. "There is a new order coming," Ms. Boxer observed. "What will it be?" What comes after the ravages of time, warfare, vandalism, indifference and disgust?Back to main page