This video is the perfect world to get lost in during quarantine. Included as a part of the online exhibition Mirror Economy at Ori Gallery, Vulture + Down (2020) by Portland-based artist and blxk trans womxn jayy dodd was filmed and produced in part while dodd was at the Zigzag Poetry Residency in Zigzag, Oregon. It makes sense that the piece emerged from what I assume was a time of concentrated art making; the scenes progress with a rare combination of precision and stream of consciousness. “I cost, I want, and it costs to want this,” recites dodd over footage of her in a coniferous forest before transitioning into a gorgeous and heartbreaking rendition of the chorus from “I Want It Now!” originally sung by Veruca Salt. Later, dodd croons: “I would like to get to know if I could be enough” in the a-frame loft at Zigzag. The original and appropriated texts question system of value and conventions of intimacy as dodd’s voice and body digitally distort and multiply. We are all bodies in flux. A soundtrack of electronic music produced by dodd bookends the piece, fusing the narrative’s linear ends into a cycle that can and should be watched on repeat.
Mirror Economy, Ori Gallery
April 15–May 29
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Amelia Rina 