Hollywood Inferno (Episode 1)

Two-Channel Video Installation 2001-2003. Shown as an installation at Participant Inc, NYC. Screened at The Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and at Pacific Film Archives at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley.

Like an update of George Romero's now classic 1978 barometer of cultural depression ("Dawn of the Dead"), "Hollywood Inferno (Episode One)" (two-channel video, 2001-02, 40:00), takes the viewer through the alienating world of a teenager named Sandy, a modern-day Dante, who descends into consumerist Hell on the escalator at the Mall.

“Laura Parnes's solo show has just one work, a film about 40 minutes long titled Hollywood Inferno (Episode One). But it's plenty, and it adds a welcome note of dissonance to a fluffy stretch in New York art...Ms. Parnes, who has a smart, notably unconservative critical eye, is now at work on her first feature film. I look forward to it.”

–Holland Cotter, New York Times