Blind Country

This collaborative video project is based on a short story by H.G. Wells called The Country of the Blind—about a man who travels to a country of blind people and attempts to dominate their sensual, feminine culture with his male, sight-derived power. Following this theme, Blind Country begins with animated fruit dancing over Mike Kelley's body and the admonition of Northerners to refill the quickly emptying sack. In the male-dominated land of the North, candy-spurting pinatas stand as phallic symbols. Presumably castrated, and stripped of his authority, Kelley acts the buffoon as he is led through the murky land of the South, a female, earthy, realm of the senses opposing the phallocentric world of the North.