REACH CAPACITY | ERICKA BECKMAN

Ericka Beckman (New York, 1951) addresses current and common themes related to politics, economics, and cultural values through video that draw on the typical mechanisms of board games to develop their narrative structure.
Reach Capacity (2020) is a performative film that uses Monopoly’s mechanics as the basis for its narrative. The artist is more concerned with the body language that the protagonists use to communicate with the audience than the care of the narrative itself. In Reach Capacity, there is no dialogue as the communicative aspect relies entirely on a soundtrack composed of musical-style songs, real performances that the protagonists act.

Reach Capacity is set in a Manhattan that becomes the playing field for the three main characters, all dressed alike in electric blue suits. Their objective is to buy land to build upon. Scenes alternate between the protagonists who strolling serenely through the city amidst construction sites, choosing where to build their palaces, and scenes featuring other characters dressed as construction workers busy building those same structures.
As time passes, construction orders increase, seriously challenging the characters/workers who find themselves facing an unsustainable workload, yet completely ignored by the blue-clad lords, who blissfully continue their shopping spree. Will the workers manage to rebel and subvert the oppressive system, asserting their rights?

Reach Capacity, through its association with the game Monopoly, takes a critical stance towards the capitalist and aggressive system typical of the real estate market which, in the real life, can seriously trouble an ordinary citizen.
What Beckman is most interested in is to explore how the individual learns and observes the rules – maybe even changing the goal to achieve when conditions are unfavorable – of the most complex and intriguing game one can ever play: the game of life.

The artwork is currently on display until December 8, 2023, at Spazio Carbonesi in Bologna, as part of the sixth edition of Foto/Industria, a biennial photography exhibition dedicated to industry and labor.

Ericka Beckman
Reach Capacity, 2020
Video still, 13’50”
© Ericka Beckman, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Francesca Pia
Link to the video

22/11/2023