Scenario in the Shade Scenario in the Shade

Every society has its youth cultures. Within them, social communities and selfexpression are closely linked, manifested through highly specific recreational activities, artistic styles, sports, commodities, slang and clothing. Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowes project Scenario in the Shade (2015–17) is an architectural and cinematic articulation of fictional youth cultures in California, a world of accelerated subcultural development, as interpreted through the mise-en-scène of a cluster of underground habitats.

The multi-space installation and film Scenario in the Shade takes as its point of departure the fictional region described by futurist Herman Kahn in his 1967 book The Year 2000. Kahn speculated that the cities of San Diego and San Francisco along the California coast would eventually grow into a single metropolis, which he called SanSan. California has long been a site where many youth cultures have coexisted: from surfing to New Age therapy, counter-cultural experiments with drugs and psychedelia, and countless musical forms such as punk, reggae and surf music. Each room in the installation is associated with a specific group in the San San Metropolis. The Fort is a hybrid of Rastafarian, techno-hippies and private school drop-outs. Bamboo Union is an Eastern European smuggling network that consumes opioid-grade cough syrup while listening to a fusion of heavy metal and EDM. Disco Creeps hail from the methamphetamine retail culture that merges light-wave based narcotics with the latest in counterfeit luxury goods.

In the film, the camera travels through various chambers: dwellings accessorised and personalised by each subculture. The soundtrack incorporates original compositions from musicians such as Jennifer Herrema, Royal Trux, Psychic Ills, Mayo Thompson, Kurt Vile, Devendra Banhart, MGMT, Alexis Taylor and Bobby Gillespie. While depicting the processes of cross-pollination that have always propelled cultural mutation and expansion, the work humorously conjures currents of atomization in todays increasingly fragmented society.