2016
Video HD, 93’, 30”
Mark Trade was shot and edited by Trecartin and Fitch. In the movie, members of a quasi- production team carrying lights and cameras, uniformed in tank-tops with the word “WITNESS” emblazoned in blocky collegiate type follow the protagonist, documenting and sometimes directing his behaviors. Mark Trade (played by Murphy Maxwell) is a volatile, straight-shooting, longhaired hick-sage whose wardrobe is a medley of specialty items designed for hunting, extreme sports, and the 4th of July. […] Trecartin’s scripts are complicated by performative flourishes that echo the capture of real life. Much of this is owed to riveting non-professional actors like Maxwell, but also to the conditions, often durational, set forth and adhered to by the entire cast and crew. In this case, many scenes were filmed during a road trip from California to the American heartland, through mystical canyons, abyssal salt flats, and a vacation cabin in a forest by a lake. These settings, nakedly undeveloped, introduce new forms of intimacy between actor and camera. At times this dynamic plays out at a distinctly decelerated pace, via wandering monologues, and at other times, Trecartin’s signature style of merged narratives and perspectives compound upon one another as multi-sensory cacophony. — Fitch Trecartin Studio