Martine Syms: Ugly Plymouths

About

Ugly Plymouths comprises a three-channel video installation in which Syms extends her explorations into performance, technique and narrative. Set in Los Angeles, the footage moves between scenes of beach vacations and daily quotidian activities, overlaid with a chorus of dialogue between three unseen characters – Hot Dog, Doobie and Le Que Sabe. In the film, the city becomes both site and situation, taking as its point of departure the Los Angeles of Bob Kaufman's poem “Hollywood”: a ‘city…sick without leave’. Actors, artists, pimps, salesclerks and poets sell delusions whole-heartedly, where there is always a catch and never a foundation. As the narrative unfolds, variously in conversations and simultaneous monologues, the characters experience difficulties in communicating with one another. Their verbal interactions feel distanced, conversely underscored their unisoned monologues and the isolation evinced through their anonymity.