By Elijah Boyle
This past Wednesday, Apollonia Doall, also referred to as “Discodashiki,” held a showing of her work which she called, “Mentally Ill from Discoville” in a small gallery in Calkins Hall, with refreshments, paintings, sculptures and even a short film.
This was the first time that a film was played in a student gallery at the University.
According to Doall, “‘Mentally Ill from Discoville’ is the [student’s] willingness to submit to the normal behavioral patterns of society.”
“Discoville is a fictional utopia of counterculture where individuals are free to express themselves by experimenting with multiple mediums,” Doall said.
One of the mediums that Doall displayed was a five-minute short film that represented the human perception of what a psychedelic trip should be, including colors, images and sound. The film was created with clips from her New Year’s Eve party, and the 2007 Pow-Wow, a Native American festival, in Shinnecock, near Southampton, N.Y., with mirrored effects that produced a kaleidoscope effect on the screen. The film’s sound consisted of Native American chants and a recording of rain.
Doug Snodderly, a senior film major, watched the film and said, “I think it’s great, progressive. I think it’s very for the moment…you don’t really see the people putting too much video or film, even the moving image, into their pieces.”
Doall said, “I wanted to show the things I worked on. I wanted to become immortal using my work.” Doall said that the themes of her show were “very death, sexual, Jim Morrison, Shamanistic and Native American.”
Another piece that was part of the gallery, called “Met-a-phys-i-cal,” and it was “a collaborative piece.” It was a piece of a rug that used to be in the gallery room, connected to a frame that had several different things painted on it.
Laurie Fendrich, a professor in the art department, said, “It’s a fun student show.”
This event was not just open to students from the University. Corine Manchester, a Nassau Community College student, and close friend of Doall, visited the show. She said, “When I heard that Apollonia was going to invite students and faculty there, I felt a rush all over my body, and I channeled into Discoville.”