“Humanity has a long-standing fascination with engineering its own destruction; a tension captured vividly in the man-made apocalyptic cinema of the late Cold War. Notes for a Mirror Cinema utilizesthe visual and emotional patterns of films like Miracle Mile, Threads, and The Day After not merely as aesthetic backdrop, but as a reflective surface. The cinematic panic of imminent annihilation, the absurdity of the countdown, and the desperate urge to save oneself under pressure act as a direct foil to my own arrival in Los Angeles. Chasing the life the city promised on screen, I found that the paranoia and claustrophobia of the cinematic fallout shelter perfectly mirrored the crushing expectations, 'arterial red' ambition, and fragile momentum of my own artistic journey. This performance translates that shared dread into a live space, framing the apocalypse not as the end of the world, but as the turbulent, necessary rupture of self-discovery.

The visual journey of Notes for a Mirror Cinema is dictated by a deliberate shift in color temperature, pulling directly from the palettes of 1980s apocalyptic cinema. The performance space will initially be bathed in a sterile, melancholic Azure Blue, mirroring the mundane 'waiting period' and cold tension that precedes cinematic disaster, as well as my own quiet periods of DIY recording and internal anxiety.

However, as the performance reaches its narrative rupture, the lighting will abruptly shift to an overwhelming, Arterial Red (the 'Miracle Mile' hue). This jarring transition physically places the audience inside the 'apocalypse,' acting as a metaphor for the hyper-competitive din of Los Angeles and the violent, necessary death of old identities.”  --Jonah Mutono