Gold Moon, Sharp Arrow

Gold Moon, Sharp Arrow stars queer artists, musicians, activists, wildcrafters, and academics as participants in the Milgram Experiment. Dr. Stanley Milgram conducted his 1963 experiment on obedience to authority at Yale University under the guise of a study on the effects of learning through discipline. “Teachers” were instructed to shock the “learners” every time they failed to memorize a list of word pairs correctly. However, the teachers were the real subjects of the investigation, while the learners were actors and no shocks were actually administered. Milgram found that while the teachers were clearly uncomfortable, stressed, and acting against their ethics, they overwhelmingly followed the orders of the authority figure.

Cutting between the original word pairs in the Milgram Experiment and footage of queers composed within the beauty of Pacific Northwest landscapes, Gold Moon, Sharp Arrow straddles the tensions between language as sites for radical transgressions and oppressive regulations. Against a backdrop of electrocution, dominance, and scientific precision, wasps nest in an abandoned refrigerator, eyelashes flutter, curtains blow in open windows, and queers congregate.

Mel Bueno as "Teacher #4"

Max Garnet

POLITICAL AGENDA:
We made Gold Moon, Sharp Arrow with the intention of supporting queer communities to continue to resist unhealthy patterns of relating, acknowledge and challenge privilege, fight against institutional forms of oppression, and work in solidarity within larger national and global movements of social justice.

As artists, we are committed to a queer culture of loving mindfulness. We support gender and sexual self-expression and self-determination, body-positivity, and sex-positivity. We resist oppression in all forms and believe in the power of community, accountability, & transformative justice. We are working towards the re-distribution of wealth and resources; ending white supremacy and misogyny; finding alternatives to capitalism, imperialism, the military-industrial complex, & the prison-industrial complex; and Everyone having access to nutritious food, safe housing, education, and comprehensive healthcare.

We seek accountability to our visions, politics, and communities, and we welcome conversation and questions.

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Gold Moon, Sharp Arrow

20120413

about:

20110517

Artist Statement