Cuesta College’s Harold J. Miossi Gallery opened “Web of Love” by Samantha Nye, an immersive video installation exploring beauty, aging, desire and queer intimacy on Jan 29.
Web of Love is a four-screen, scene-by-scene remake of an old Scopitone film. Scopitone films were short videos usually featuring pin-ups and scantily clad women with music that people could watch at kiosks in clubs in the 60s and 70s.
The installation has four videos playing, one on each wall, with a lounge area made of four heart-shaped hot tubs filled with pillows for viewing any of the projections in the center of the room. All of this rests on red shag carpet that pays homage to an age of kitsch, camp and glamor. The space is made to blur the lines between viewing, lounging and participating via dialogue.
“Instead of challenging taboos, we are fixing taboos, and I think when young people get to experience that through play, through humor, through beauty. I think then they can come at that and envision something else for themselves or the world around them,” Nye said. “Then they can start to identify some of the taboos worth fixing.”
The installation features legendary Bay Area couple, filmmakers and performance artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. “We’re grateful to this gallery for making this work happen. It was truly the most fun shoot I’ve been on my whole life,” Stephens said. “I’ve made a couple hundred movies and this was so special for us since we love Samantha’s work so much. I’m excited to do more work together after tonight.”
As part of the opening of “Web of Love” on Jan. 29, Nye, who has won numerous awards and fellowships, held an artist’s talk about her work in the Humanities Forum across from the Miossi Gallery on Cuesta’s SLO campus. Nye presented a PowerPoint examining her main artistic inspirations, including 80s MTV, “The Golden Girls,” and Miss Piggy from The Muppets. These are the inspirations that brought her into the world of music videos, artistic sets, intelligent campy humor and identity.
When her mother recently reminded her that, as a child she would watch “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Wiz” on repeat, Nye realized that was the origin of her impulse to recreate. “What you see is something that both inspires you, but also maybe there’s something missing there. Maybe there’s something kind of f*cked up about it, right?” Nye said. “Maybe there’s something that you want to challenge or change. I see now that that power of adaptation is another theme that’s consistent in my work.”
She went on to explain how these inspirations have informed both her early work and more recent work, including multiple Scopitone-inspired films and a series of paintings in which she painted retirement-age women as classic Playboy covers.
“Web of Love” was funded in part by the Guggenheim Foundation and shot at the nearby Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. Miossi Gallery Curator and Cuesta College Faculty Timothy Stark also played a role in the production, including bringing several Cuesta College students to help on set and get real world experience.
“Web of Love” is showing until March 13 at the Harold J. Miossi Gallery. The gallery is open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment.
