Approximations: December 31

Collaboration: Johanna Householder and b.h. Yael, 2002

Video length:  7:20 mins

December 31, 2000 is a shot-for-shot recreation of the pivotal scene in Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dave is in the process of dismantling HAL, the renegade and recalcitrant computer. On December 31, 2000, Kubrick's apocalyptic dream has not yet been realized. The domestic scene supplants the space station and household appliances are the conduit through which Dave (Johanna Householder) emerges and enters the spaceship in order to render HAL powerless. In an ironic reversal, December 31, 2000 underscores the failure of the future. 

Approximations: December 31 is one of four works by Johanna Householder and b.h. Yael, which are shot for shot recreations of specific filmic scenes while their own gendered bodies re-perform the lead characters. The first three works take on 1970’s cinematic classics: Apocalypse Now, 2001 Space Odyssey, and Last Tango in Paris. The last, a bit more of an anomaly, is Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

The works are an amalgamation of Johanna’s and Yael’s sensibilities, performance and cinematography, and display a fascination with and questioning of representations of the future, apocalypse and war, sex and religion. 

Approximations: December 31 also screened at 7a*md8 on June 10, 2017, as a part of a 7a*11d's series of multi-platform performance-for-the-camera screenings and digital residencies distributed across a range of Toronto cultural spaces as well as online platforms.

Catalogue published by Mount Saint Vincent University, MSV Art Gallery, Halifax.