Tracing the Decay of Fiction

Excerpts from an interactive DVD-ROM by Pat O’Neill, Rosemary Comella, Kristy H.A. Kang, Marsha Kinder and The Labyrinth Project (2002, installation and DVD-ROM)

• Exhibition Premiere in Future Cinema, ZKM in Karlsruhe, Kiasma in Helsinki and the ICC in Tokyo, 2002 – 2004

Concept Design: Rosemary Comella, Kristy H.A. Kang, Marsha Kinder & Pat O’Neill
Executive Producer: Marsha Kinder
Associate Producers: Nsenga K Burton, Joanne Hanley, Alison Trope & Cristina Venegas
Interface Design: Rosemary Comella & Kristy H.A. Kang
Programming & Graphic Design: Rosemary Comella
Digital Compositing & Graphic Design: Kristy H.A. Kang
Sound Design: George Lockwood & Adam King
(see full production credits)

Based on Pat O’Neill’s 35 mm film, “The Decay of Fiction” (2002), this interactive project is an archeological exploration of the Hotel Ambassador, a vintage building now in ruins. Erected in 1920, the hotel played a crucial role in the development of Los Angeles and its urban sprawl. Well known for its glamorous Cocoanut Grove nightclub where Hollywood stars and movie moguls mingled with foreign dignitaries and downtown power brokers, the Ambassador was also the site of one of our nation’s most disturbing events–the 1968 assassination of Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy.