Rollerbabies (of Paradise) / Canada (Windsor) / Louisiana Premiere

The world wide web is a powerful leveller: content that was once produced and controlled by publishers, industries and institutions is often freely available to be conjured, shared, and re-shared in a variety of non-hierarchal ways. This is perhaps especially true of pornography, long known to be one of the central drivers of web-based technological change and commerce. Rollerbabies (of Paradise) is a montage that exhausts all promises of the exotic and the erotic found in the original films: Bird of Paradise (1932), Rollerball (1975) and Rollerbabies (1976). As a work of satire, this piece embodies its suspicions and questions many of the voyeuristic gazes found in these earlier sources. Designed as an anti-spectacle, the visuals emphasize the juxtapositions of roughly cut transitions upon the repeated movements of the bored skaters. With its sugary violins, the soundtrack is reminiscent of the kind of sentimental music used in iconic love stories. It offers a counter-narrative of a dreamy yet saccharine world.

Director Statement

Rollerbabies (of Paradise) is a mash up of sounds and visions created by two artists working near the highly porous international border of Windsor/Detroit. In each of their respective practices, they question the impact that technologies and social institutions have upon cultural production.