Neill Prewitt Opens We Cruzin’ Theme Park at Lump

October, 07, 2011 , by David

We have talked about Neill Prewitt before. The prolific artist has a body of work that stretches across media and genre combining psychedelic sensibilities with cultural commentary. New Raleigh first wrote about Neill's work as Yuxtapango emerged in early 2009. Since then we have seen collaborations with the band Heads on Sticks, regular exhibitions, presenting works at the Block2 Fayetteville Street Video exhibition, and regular Yuxtapango entries. Prewitt is cerebral, immersed and questioning where it is all headed.

We Cruzin' is an installation inspired by google maps and the debris spread across Raleigh. Prewitt is a Raleigh native and having watched the transition of the downtown, his reaction is visceral. To hear Prewitt describe it:

We Cruizin' is a DIY technosocial theme park envisioning the contemporary state of downtown Raleigh. Trashcans and carts have been dragged from the surrounding streets into Lump, where they become props in the Google Maps Street View of those same streets. But these props act too, spilling out video and music in response to their Street View fate. This is a drama of change, a bold and traumatic transition in property, history and ideology.

Visitors to the theme park are enticed to playfully engage in this drama, without seeing its resolution. Like the street props, visitors navigate a tragicomic slippage between past and future, physical and virtual. It's a wild ride through our contemporary moment. Visitors exit the theme park with a heightened sense of playful agency, moved to participate in whether this very real drama is resolved into tragedy or comedy. Or your money back.

For Prewitt- these thoughts first germinated in this video:

David: How did you get into video art?

Neill Prewitt: I studied literature and film studies at NCState in the last half of the 90s. Six years later I was in Mexico City looking for a job teaching English and was offered a filmmaking class, in English. I spent the next two years developing a curriculum of video collage, where students could use their cellphone cameras and internet access to make short provocative videos that juxtapose elements to succinctly communicate a complex, irreducible dialectics. When my wife Ellie and I moved to Raleigh after Mexico I started Yuxtapongo as a continuation of these ideas and a way to build a local community of video artists sharing their work with each other.

What type of work do you spend the most time doing?

Since I've been in the MFA program at UNC I have gotten to spend most of my time making art and have been taking the opportunity explore a number of directions for my practice. Video seems to be the consistent element in all my projects; at times it's a part of a performance, at others it's an element in a sculptural installation, at others it's a part of a community art project. Music is at the moment on the backburner, but I'm slowly working on it. I also spend a lot of time curating and cultivating creative relationships.

I live in Carrboro these days, while I am a student at UNC. After growing up and then going to college in Raleigh, I've lived either there or in Carrboro for most of my adult life, with the exception of a couple of years in Mexico City. I have several active projects and collaborations in Raleigh right now and find myself coming to town about once a week. I'm so connected to the place and my feelings about it are so storied and complex that, honestly, I enjoy having a bit of distance.

We Cruzin' can be seen at Lump tonight and Saturdays through October.