Note: Dogs are welcome at the opening

The Refrain: Medfield/Walpole
A Play by Andrew Norman Wilson

Dedicated to Susan and Richard Wilson

INTERIOR. NORM’S WORKSPACE, NEW YORK – 12/12/12, NIGHT

NORM
(alone in workspace, to no one, with style)
This town (read as: show) will deal with a “problem.” Thankfully, birds, trees, people, songs, packages, baseball cards, hot dogs, cat trees, cases of bottled water, and employment are available to look at each other, sing songs to each other, support each other, grow on each other, refresh each other, send packages to each other, trade each other, nourish each other, and hire each other.

INTERIOR. NORM’S WORKSPACE, NEW YORK – 12/12/12, NIGHT

Norm with laptop. He sends an initial planning email to the directors of threewalls in Chicago, with style.

INTERIOR. NORM’S TEMPORARY WORKSPACE, BERLIN – 2/14/13, DAY

Norm with laptop. He posts a call for interns on Simply Hired:

“DVD SALES, BIRD CARE, AND PLANT WATERING INTERN FOR ARTIST: An artist is looking for two interns for a town (read as: show) at threewalls gallery in Chicago from March 8 to April 20. For roughly 30 minutes every Saturday you will perform simple tasks in a brand new triclimate North Face jacket. These tasks include caring for two crested Gloster Canaries, bartering the sales of pirated Butterfly Effect or PUNK’d DVDs, and carefully watering two evergreen trees so as to not damage the HDTV’s they are serving as stands for.

No experience necessary. Twins are encouraged to apply. All profits from the pirated Butterfly Effect or PUNK’d DVDs you sell are yours to keep. Triclimate North Face jackets must be returned upon the closure of the town. The artist and threewalls directors agree to write letters of recommendation that say you developed any skills and experience required for future jobs you apply for.”

INTERIOR. TEMPORARY WORKSPACE, BERLIN – 2/16/13, NIGHT

Norm with laptop. He takes recreational drugs and purchases materials for the town with his credit card from WalMart and Target’s online stores. He selects free shipping with site to store pickup in Chicago, Illinois and creates printable PDFs of the receipts.

INTERIOR. O’HARE AIRPORT, CHICAGO – 3/3/13, DAY

Don Perez, Champion Gloster Canary Breeder, picks up Norm at O’hare airport and drives him to his “House of Crests” in Glendale, Illinois. Upon arrival Norm begins shooting the promotional video that he agreed to make for the House of Crests (in addition to a deposit of $750 through Paypal) in exchange for a 6 week loan of two custom built cages and two crested Gloster Canaries to be included in the town at threewalls.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/5/13, DAY

Bare Interior. The contract Norm made for threewalls is finalized and brought to a notary by Norm and the threewalls directors. Norm’s copy of the contract is framed and delivered to Norm’s workspace in New York to be hung by his intern, and threewalls’ copy is framed and mounted in the threewalls reception area.

Construction of the town begins. The public is invited via facebook to call the threewalls land line at +1 312-432-3972 during open hours to hear a report on construction progress. They are also informed that for the duration of the town, Simply Hired interns will offer pirated copies of The Butterfly Effect and Punk’d for barter. Simply Hired Interns are sized for their uniforms (triclimate North Face jackets).

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/7/13, NIGHT

Two male crested Gloster canaries in two canary cages on top of two cat trees – 51” and 52” – with two Robin Ventura baseball cards – Topps 1990 Rookie card with the Chicago White Sox, and 2001 SP Game Used Edition Authentic Fabric Jersey Card with the New York Mets. Two Vizio Flat panel video monitors – 32” and 39” on top of two evergreen trees – a black hills spruce evergreen and a white pine evergreen – in two terra cotta pots – 12” and 16.” Two cable signals and a cable television converter box from Xfinity. Two hot dogs – one with ketchup, one with mustard on a Melissa and Doug activity table. Two 24/Cases of Nestle Water – one packaged as Poland Springs and the other as Ice Mountain – for the canaries, trees, and visitors. Two FedEx boxes – one poster tube and one golf club tube. One Sony stereo system. One MP3 player looping one of two songs every 30 minutes – R Kelly’s “Love Letter” and Aaliyah’s “4 Page Letter.” One contract signed by Norm and the threewalls directors. Two triclimate North Face jackets with pirated Butterfly Effect or PUNK’d DVDs in the pockets. A couple.

The night before the town opens, a couple makes love in the town. After finishing they arrange for the two empty FedEx boxes to be picked up at the closing ceremony for the town and shipped via FedEx – one to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the constitutional monarch of Dubai, and the other to Dave Bing, the mayor of Detroit. On the boxes, contents are listed as “nothing.” All of this and everything else is done with style.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/8/13, NIGHT

The town opens and people arrive – some with dogs. Norm delivers a speech from the film Good Will Hunting.

INTERIOR. BAR, CHICAGO – 3/8/13, NIGHT

Norm, the threewalls directors and interns, and people who came to the town’s opening arrive at a bar for the karaoke afterparty.

INTERIOR. JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NEW YORK – 3/9/13, NIGHT

Norm returns to New York and grabs a slice.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/9/13 – 3/15/13, DAY

At 11 am, hourly and daily tasks commence for the threewalls interns. Two daily schedules are printed on Fed Ex canary colored card stock. One is placed in its display in the town, the other is placed in its display on the front of the building. Two fresh hot dogs from Target cafe are placed on their trays – one is dressed with ketchup, the other with mustard. A threewalls intern takes a picture of the hot dogs and posts it to the threewalls facebook page with the caption “TWO FRESH AND FREE HOT DOGS COME BY.” The R Kelly and Aaliyah audio file is turned on and set to loop throughout the day. The flat panel video monitors are turned on. Each plays a different 24 hour news network at 50% volume. Each hour on the hour, the channel is changed on both monitors to different 24 hour news networks. All of this is done with style.

At 5 pm, both monitors are turned off. The looping audio file is stopped. The hot dog area is cleaned up and any leftover hot dog is placed in the tree outside of threewalls.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/12/13 – 3/15/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/16/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

At 12 pm, a threewalls intern announces via facebook that at 2 pm a Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop musician will perform covers of love songs of his or her choosing and pirated DVDs of The Butterfly Effect and Punk’d will be available for barter through the Simply Hired interns while they clean the bird cages and water the evergreen trees. At 2 pm these situations happen.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/19/13 – 3/22/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/23/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

Weekly threewalls intern, Simply Hired intern and Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop musician tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/26/13 – 3/29/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 3/30/13, DAY

Typical town functions are suspended for the mid-town ceremony – a Jim Carrey retrospective.

At 11:00 am The Truman Show plays. At 12:43 pm The Mask plays. At 2:00 pm Liar Liar plays. At 3:26 pm Me, Myself & Irene plays. At 5:22 pm The Majestic plays. At 7:54 pm Dumb and Dumber plays. At 9:41 pm Man on the Moon plays.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/2/13 – 4/5/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/6/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

Weekly threewalls intern, Simply Hired intern and Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop musician tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/9/13 – 4/12/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/13/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

Weekly threewalls intern, Simply Hired intern and Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop musician tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/16/13 – 4/19/13, DAY

Hourly and daily tasks are repeated.

INTERIOR. THREEWALLS, CHICAGO – 4/20/13, DAY

Typical town functions are suspended for the closing ceremony of the town. The two empty FedEx boxes are picked up by a FedEx employee and shipped to the mayor of Dubai and the constitutional monarch of Detroit. The cable box is picked up by an Xfinity specialist. A threewalls intern prints out receipts for any items that will be returned, and those items are packed in their original boxes. Don Perez arrives and picks up his two Crested Gloster Canaries. A musician from Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop plays covers of love songs of his or her choosing. The Simply Hired interns remove their uniforms and offer deals on any leftover DVDs of Punk’d and The Butterfly Effect. The Simply Hired interns and threewalls directors and interns give speeches. Any hot dogs left in the tree outside are buried beneath the tree. All of this is done with style.

Andrew Norman Wilson currently lives and works in New York. He is a 2011 recipient of the Dedalus Foundation MFA fellowship and the Edward Ryerson Fellowship. His work has been presented at the Images Festival in Toronto, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Yaffo 23 in Jerusalem, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Parsons, UCLA, and Reed College. His work has been featured in Artforum, Aperture Magazine, Rhizome, Buzzfeed, and more.
www.andrewnormanwilson.com

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Tags: Andrew Norman Wilson, threewalls, West Loop