On Being Mortal
2022
Five-channel digital video (color, sound), treadmill, wooden dresser, crash mats, metal chair, wooden staircase, green screen paint, green screen fabric
20:46 mins
Commissioned by New York Public Library for the Performing Arts x Pioneer Works. Presented at Second Sundays at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New YorkVideo Assistants: Deep Pool & Robert Wallace
On Being Mortal is a video installation that appropriates behind the scenes footage archived from the making of Mortal Kombat video arcade games in the early 90s. Through costuming and choreography, Garcia adopts the role of five iconic fighters and reflects upon her own personal journey training in Filipino Martial Arts. Garcia displays the production props used for chroma keying (or green screening) purposes that were used to create special effects and visual illusions. In doing so, there is a rupture of fantasy that brings light to the reality of a martial artist and our human limitations. Garcia employs the post-production technique of compositing or layering to playfully blur these conventions.
On Being Mortal demonstrates the concept of chroma key collaging, a process of moving image making that Garcia conceptualized for the Pioneer Works x New York Public Library for the Performing Arts partnership for their Tech Kit Series. This technique involved the basics of chroma key technology (popularly known as green screening) and invited participants to experiment with the post-production technique of compositing, a method of layering images and video. The outcome was to create time-based collages through a compound system of chroma keying and image layering, intentionally using various color hues other than the typical green, utilizing the equipment in the NYPL Tech Kit.