The pretext for Shoot
is a crashed LAPD car riddled with bullet holes which I found in a
junkyard. According to the junkyard owner, the car was involved in
a famous police shoot-out in North Hollywood, which was "inspired"
by a Hollywood movie (Heat). Later on, Hollywood produced another
film, titled 44 Minutes, based in turn on the North Hollywood shoot-out.
For Shoot, I recreated similar relationships amongst construction,
mediation and facts. I directed a camera crew which shot yet another
reenactment of the facts of the shoot-out, taking the place of the
bank-robbers. On the other hand, l recruited a group of "actors" in
a work center outside a construction store, known to attract so-called
undocumented immigrants from various countries around Central America
(Nicaragua, EL Salvador...), to play the roles of the policemen. Thus
using a high level of improvisation, these actors --most of whom have
had encounters with or experience as either guerillas and/or the military--
recreated the shoot-out between the police and bank-robbers based
on their own experiences, fears and fantasies.
The bank-robbers' machine
guns turned into the crew's cameras and the shots were orchestrated
in relation to the shoot-out ballistics. The final installation consists
of two side-by-side projections showing the action from two facing
angles.
