Celebration of the Life of James Thomer
"A Celebration of the Life of James Thomer" was an installation simulating a fake funeral for myself in the CalArts WaveCave. On Thursday, November 3rd, I held a 50-minute long memorial in the installation space with scripted eulogies, poem readings and musical performances.
The family members that performed eulogies were portrayed by professional actors that I hired through Backstage and Craigslist, including my father, mother, brother, sister and a pastor, along with comedian Brent Weinbach portraying a childhood friend. The obituary, eulogies and personal anecdotes shared throughout the service contained both factual and fabricated stories of my life and upbringing, interwoven together to create the distinction between the two difficult, if not impossible.
Full video documentation coming soon.