MIKE BUILDS A SHELTER

of FISHER Mark, SMITH Michael

UNITED STATES, 1985, 00:23:55

Production : FISHER Mark, MIKE AND MARK Productions, SMITH Michael
Genre : Video art
Keyword : America, Fiction, War, Humour, Performance, Television

Summary :
MIKE BUILDS A SHELTER is a comedy tinted by the catastrophic, the fictional version of the installation by Michael SMITH, of an anti-atomic kitchenette shelter as approved by the government. In this piece, SMITH gives us the portrait of Mike through two complementary preoccupations : love and respect of the environment (where Mike is seen in candid communion with nature) and measures for anti-atomic personal protection (Mike stocking up on provisions and transforming his kitchenette into an atomic shelter according to the plans approved by the government). This portrait is completed by intruding episodes of Mike's show (a sitcom on cable channels showing to passive but faithful television viewers the daily domestic banality of Mike, cf IT STARTS AT HOME, by the same author). The nuclear protection measures recommended by the state and which seduce Mike so much are characteristic of the naiveness of public safety policies in the fifties, which provide a vision of the nuclear threat which contrasts radically and ironically with the contemporary reality of the subject.

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