after the after hours
2015 Installation at The Luminary Center for the Arts
“After the After Hours” is a video performance work based on Ep. 34, The After Hours from The Twilight Zone (1960) TV series. The artist dresses as the main character from the episode, a woman who goes looking for a golden thimble in a department store for a gift, but the story reveals that she is a mannequin living out her last day in her “turn” as a human. The performance video takes place inside of Evergreen Plaza Mall in Chicago, a completely vacated retail space. The artist endures a series of “mannequin poses” in various spaces in the mall. Her crisp white blouse, tight pencil skirt, and her body itself become the last “objects of desire” left in the vacant space.
The video of this performance was presented as an installation at The Luminary Center for the Arts, along with a magnified antique golden thimble sitting on red velvet in an 1950’s trinket box. Viewers could look through the magnification device to see intricate detail.
JaNae Contag 