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Almost forty years after its first appearance in You The Better, the house returns as a character in Beckman’s new work Reach Capacity, now symbolising real estate. The economic and political elements and the structure of the film are closely associated with the most famous of all board games dealing with real estate, Monopoly. Its origins go back to the early 1900s, when Elizabeth Magie created a first version of what she called The Landlord’s Game. Magie’s game had two sets of rules, a Prosperity set and a Monopolist set (only the latter was kept by Parker Brothers when they further developed the game without her). Magie’s aim was to illustrate how society as a whole thrives when monopolies are banished and income is distributed equally. Beckman takes over Magie’s dual game structure by having her screen flip over when a monopoly is reached.
This collaborative video project is based on a short story by H.G. Wells called "The Country of the Blind"—about a man who travels to a country of blind people and attempts to dominate their sensual, feminine culture with his male, sight-derived power. Following this theme, "Blind Country" begins with animated fruit dancing over Mike Kelley's body and the admonition of "Northerners" to "refill the quickly emptying sack." In the male-dominated land of the North, candy-spurting pinatas stand as phallic symbols. Presumably castrated, and stripped of his authority, Kelley acts the buffoon as he is led through the murky land of the South, a "female," earthy, "realm of the senses" opposing the phallocentric world of the North.
“CINDERELLA is a musical treatment of the fairy tale. I have broken apart the story and set it as a mechanical game with a series of repetitions where CINDERELLA is projected back and forth like a ping-pong ball between the hearth and the castle. She never succeeds in satisfying the requirements of the ‘Cinderella Game’. The film was shot MOS, the dialogue is lip-synched, and along with the out-front score and effects track magnifies the film’s sense of alienation.” — E.B. 1984 - Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.
“HIATUS is a 20-minute experimental narrative film about a young woman who plays HIATUS, an on-line interactive ‘identity’ game. Propelled through action by her Go-Go cowgirl construct Wanda, and powered by a computer corset that stores her programs in a garden interface, Maid meets Wang, a powerful take-over artist. She must learn how to use the power of her ‘organic memory’ to block his expansion and preserve her freedom.” — E.B. 1999
“YOU THE BETTER is a film based on games of chance, and as games such as roulette, or craps go, this one is closed – meaning that the player cannot really affect the outcome. A team of uniformed players, led by the artist Ashley Bickerton, performs the mechanics of a game servicing an off-camera betting entity, the ‘House’. Although the game keeps changing and players are swapped out, one thing remains the same, the ‘House’ is hidden and controls the bets, the ‘chance’ of winning is nil. The game, in fact, is not between the players, but rather between the ‘House’, and the ‘Bettor’.” — E.B. 1983
Frame UP is an 8-minute dual screen film that utilizes the construction zone of the Walker Art Center’s museum expansion as the platform for a hybrid pinball/croquette game played by two off screen players. The game begins when the crane, spinning at high speed in the center of the site, drops two balls down the chute of an elevator shaft. The construction workers and their materials become the flippers and paddles that careen balls against the obstacles in the construction site as it changes over time
Says Beckmann of her film: "SWITCH CENTER is a tribute to the futuristic architecture of the Soviet postwar period, and a reaction to seeing it transitioned to shopping malls or global corporate office structures. I was invited by Balazs Bela Studio in Budapest to produce a short experimental film in Hungary. I was the first American artist to be invited by this famous film collective after the fall of Soviet power". She would also describe the film as an homage to Fernand Léger's Ballet Mécanique.
"Tension Building is a composite of linked architectural spaces, some are real and some are models. It combines stop motion and live action filmmaking shot at the Harvard University Coliseum in Boston (1935) and the Municipal Stadium in Florence (1932), built in by Luigi Nervi. It features Boston Symphony Orchestra percussionist Richard Flanagan, and the U Mass Minute Man Marching Band. I used my camera like a surveyor’s transit and created some rules for its path around the stadium." - Ericka Beckman
STALK is a 23-minute experimental single screen film created from the elements of an October 2021 NYC Performa Biennial commission. Adapted from the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk, STALK is a critique of corporate farming using GMO seeds and the effects of economic pressure on a small independent farming community. It features vocal work, performers and stop motion animation. STALK was shot in 16mm film, transferred to HD and edited on Avid Media Composer 8.5.
Short film.