Chain

D: Jem Cohen

A ruined mall. A gleaming, neon-bedecked shopping center. Airports. Transportation hubs. New York. Melbourne. Somewhere else, maybe. Jem Cohen’s documentary films, from the Fugazi-inspired (and inspiring) Instrument to the inspired, grimy beauty of his portrait of Atlanta blues hustler Benjamin Smoke, carry the weight of the immediate. They are frantically of the now, even when the events and portraits contained seamlessly within are sometimes of the past. Chain, Cohen’s feature-length version of an ongoing project he has been working on for several years (and which showed at MOMA in a triple-projected version) documents the destruction of the regional landscape by the encroachment of corporate culture. Hence the malls, which, to all appearances, could be anywhere on Earth, now that American culture has slipped the bounds of good taste and infected the global status quo. Zeitgeist or ghost in the machine? Either way the spirit appears to be malevolent. – Marc Savlov

Sunday, Sept. 26, 1:45pm, Hideout. Cohen will also collaborate with the minimalist composer Terry Riley on Friday, Sept. 24, 8pm, at the First United Methodist Church. For more on that, see Music Recommended, p.102.

This article appears in September 24 • 2004.

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James graduated from Columbia University in 2000 and moved to Austin a year later. Ever since, he has followed the arts and video game scene in ATX, editing and writing stories for the Chronicle along the way. Over his more than 20 years with the paper he has climbed the "corporate" ladder from lowly intern to managing editor.