© Annenburg Center for Communication, University of South California, 2002 (United States)

REALISATION

AUTHORS • Writing and production: Marsha Kinder in collaboration with John Rechy • Interface design: Kristy H.A. Kang & James Tobias, in consultation with William S. Hughes & Marsha Kinder • Art director : Kristy H.A. Kang • Videography & photography: Laurel Almerinda, William S. Hughes • Sound design :James Tobias • Programming: William S. Hughes PRODUCTION • Executive producer : Marsha Kinder • Associated producers: Alison Trope , Cristina Venegas • A co-production of The Labyrinth Project and the Center for Art and Media ZKM. Annenburg Center for Communication, University of South California, 2000 Original English version, Macintosh™ and Windows™

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The Labyrinth Project is an art collective and research initiative on interactive cinema and database narrative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Communication.

Under the direction of cultural theorist Marsha Kinder since 1997, this initiative works at the pressure point between theory and practice. After hosting “Interactive Frictions,” a groundbreaking international conference and exhibition at USC in 1999, Kinder decided to focus on producing interactive narratives and installations in collaboration with visual artists and writers known for their experimentation with nonlinear forms. Labyrinth is committed to creating a productive dialogue between the immersive language of cinema and the interactive potential and database structures of digital media.

ABOUT JOHN RECHY

Artist Biography
is a first generation Mexican American novelist who was born in El Paso, Texas and who in 1997 received PEN-USA-West's Lifetime Achievement Award. He came to world attention in 1963 with the publication of his first novel, City of Night, which revealed the previously unknown world of gay hustling and immediately became a best seller and an American classic. Finding it difficult to believe that someone so young who knew that world so intimately could possibly be such a brilliant writer, many critics at first speculated that the book must have been written from another's experience by an established writer under a pseudonym--perhaps James Baldwin or Tennessee Williams. The book had a profound influence on many other artists, including Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Gus van Sant, and David Hockney. Rechy went on to write eleven more novels, which have been translated into over a dozen languages and which are frequently taught in university courses.

With subsequent provocative works on the gay world, such as Numbers, The Sexual Outlaw, and Rushes, he has remained a controversial and influential figure. With later works like The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez and some of his essays, he has also become an important figure in Chicano literature. In fact, all of his protagonists are Mexican American, and a number of them are female (as in Marilyn's Daughter and Our Lady of Babylon as well as in Amalia Gomez). He is also the author of three plays, several short stories, and many essays on a wide range of topics--gay politics, bodybuilding, book reviews. He was also a journalist for the Texas Observer and The Nation, championing many leftist political causes. In the early 1970s when Rechy settled in Los Angeles, he began teaching writing courses that have become legendary--first at Occidental College, then at UCLA, and now in the Masters in Professional Writing Program at USC. Many of the students in his workshops have published novels and plays, and won Emmy's and Oscars, but still continue under his tutelage, claiming he is a master teacher.

Bibliography
Books:
City of Night, 1963.
Numbers, 1967.
This Day's Death, 1969.
The Vampires, 1971.
The Fourth Angel, 1973.
The Sexual Outlaw, 1977.
Rushes, 1979.
Bodies and Souls, 1983.
Marilyn's Daughter, 1988.
The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, 1991.
Our Lady of Babylon, 1996.
The Coming of the Night, 1998.
Plays
Momma As She Became--Not As She Was, 1968.
Rushes, 1978.
Tigers Wild, 1986.

 

 

MYSTERIES AND DESIRE: SEARCHING THE WORLDS OF JOHN RECHY

FICTION CDROM

Challenging the borders between autobiography, memory, history and fiction, this interactive memoir presents a diverse array of personal materials by and about John Rechy, a Chicano writer from Texas, and sets them against larger collective histories of Chicano culture and the gay world.

Drawing passages from all of Rechy’s published novels, the interactive work also mines the outrageous fictions that circulate around this fascinating literary figure who, as a gay icon, a Chicano writer from Texas, a dedicated bodybuilder, a gifted teacher of creative writing, and the 1997 recipient of the PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award, has long been a subject of notoriety and fantasy.

Combining original artwork, video, archival documents, and recorded interviews and commentaries, it lets you move through three interrelated realms – Memories, Bodies and Cruising – each with its own daring repertoire of gestural interfaces. The script and conceptual design were developed collaboratively by John Rechy and Marsha Kinder, and the graphics and interface design by Kristy H.A. Kang and James Tobias, with additional artwork by Augie Robles.

 

EXHIBITIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

• OFFICIAL SELECTION at the 2001 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
WINNER of the NEW MEDIA INVISION 2000 GOLD AWARD for OVERALL DESIGN

- Interactive Frictions, University of Southern California 1999
- Contact Zones: Art of the CD-ROM, Cornell University 1999
- Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and
New Media 1999
- European Media Arts Festival 2000
- Bellaria Anno Zero Festival, 2000
- 5th International Festival of New Film, Split, Croatia 2000
- Electronic Fictions, Museum of Contemporary Art, LA, CA 2000
- L.A. Freewaves 7th Festival of Experimental Media Arts 2000
- Netimage Festival 2000
- Mill Valley Film Festival 2000
- Sundance Film Festival 2001
- Art in Motion II, University of Southern California 2001
- Viper 21 International Festival for Film, Video
and New Media 2001

CREDITS CD-ROM Production:

Mysteries and Desire: Searching the Worlds of John Rechy
by Marsha Kinder and Kristy H.A. Kang with John Rechy and James Tobias

• written & produced by Marsha Kinder, in collaboration with John Rechy
who wrote and recorded his own commentaries

• interface design - Kristy H.A. Kang & James Tobias, in consultation with William S. Hughes & Marsha Kinder

• art director - Kristy H.A. Kang
- additional graphics - Sergio Ramirez, Augie Robles, James Tobias, Raqi Syed, and Han Yi
- director of the "Cruising Realm" & the "Salvation Zone" - James Tobias

• programmer - William S. Hughes
- additional programming - Russell Burt, Rosemary Comella, Edson Gianesi , James Tobias

• videography & photography - Laurel Almerinda, William S. Hughes

• sound design - James Tobias
- additional sound recording & editing - Russell Burt, Robert Drummond,
Sean Uyehara

• choreography - Peter Healey
dancers - Bogar Martinez, Michael Mizerany, John Pennington

• associate producers - Alison Trope , Cristina Venegas

• commentators and interviewees -Norma Jean Almodovar, John Bates, Maureen Connell, Alfredo Jordan, Marsha Kinder, Blanche Ludwig, John Rechy, Roberto Rechy, Carolyn See,
Pamela Warrick