Three theses on curb-crawling: from lurkers to terrorists who just want to talk

For ten weeks from 20 March the Potter will continuously screen My best thing (2011), a feature-length film by acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist Frances Stark. First exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and subsequently screening at galleries including MoMA PS1, New York, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, this is the Australian premiere of My best thing. My best thing is an animated film born out of the creative block Stark experienced while attempting to balance life as a mother, full-time teacher, writer and artist. Stark confesses to having sought refuge from anxiety in the online video and chat room Chatroulette, and discovering there, to her surprise, the inspiration for what has become one of her most celebrated works. My best thing’s doll-like figures stand in for Stark and the men she met online, two of whom became her partners in intimate virtual relationships. Dialogue is lifted directly from transcripts of her encounters with them---frank discussions that shift from opinions on Federico Fellini, David Foster Wallace and Pablo Picasso to philosophical ponderings and, frequently, to sex. Stark and her men communicate in computer-generated voices. The green screen against which they interact is part of a striking, crude visual language, lifted from the do-it-yourself animation software Xtranormal. The gap between the naiveté of characters’ semi-naked physical forms and the complexity of their interaction reinforces a tension between intimacy and anonymity. Described as ‘compulsively watchable’, My best thing conveys a remarkable range in tone and feeling, from poignant and insightful to laugh-out-loud funny.