The Dennis and Debbie Club: On Holiday in the Hyperreal

What prompted the move to audio-visual work from sculpture?

"After we graduated and officially formed the Dennis and Debbie Club we decided to go digital for economic reasons. It’s also fantasy fulfilment: spaces that we would never encounter, that we’ve never been to before and probably won’t visit in the foreseeable future (unless we have a big money injection), are brought closer as a virtual vacation."

The reconstructions are themselves simulacra and a sculptural recreation in digital form. Could you tell me more about that and the influence of the hyperreal?

"The early works tried to rebuild nonexistent things that we still have nostalgic feelings towards – the nostalgia a videogame has. Our memories flatten experiences of space. I think that’s why we do sculptural videos flattened back to 2D, it’s memory and fantasy. We’re experimenting with virtual reality headsets like Google Cardboards. With that we’re trying to create an immersive experience with the 3D objects we’re building so they feel more like spaces we can drive narratives into."

Is your interest in celebrity part of your engagement with the narrative of hyperreality?

"Of course, because it’s a weird fiction we all share. The Strip is essentially about endpoints of aspiration, and celebrity is tragic, romantic and pure aspiration."

How did you visualise the space without a literal space to work from?

"The Strip is a three-channel video and on one there is the recreation of the greenhouse Kurt Cobain shot himself in, which was torn down in 1996. Debbie used the crime scene photos and literature on Kurt Cobain’s suicide with all these referential things that surround him to rebuild that space. That’s one endpoint: being overly famous to the point where your vision of fame is so perverted in front of you that you kill yourself.

"The second is Sunset Boulevard, with a lot of buildings from different times. We have Schwab’s Pharmacy, which is in the film Sunset Boulevard, so that’s more like the glamorous days of Hollywood. We also have the Garden of Allah, where all the actors and actresses of that time hung out. It’s now a parking lot, but we have the Chateau Marmont which still exists. Debbie was in touch with somebody from Los Angeles who writes fan fiction about old actresses, who found a model of the Garden of Allah. We tried to stay true to what used to be there but isn’t any more, and also how they ended up.         

"Lastly are the Mars 3D photographs of craters from the Land Rover, from which NASA has made 3D models. We’ve taken that and made an artist’s impression of what Mars might look like in colour."

An artist’s impression of a digital impression?

"Absolutely! Celebrity is part of that – especially when you talk about Sunset Boulevard’s inescapability. There’s another celebrity aspect, the recreation of River Phoenix’s death in front of The Viper Room in 1993."

There’s layered tragedy in all this.

"Whenever there’s aspiration that might be false, there’s bound to be tragedy. That’s what we share: trying to be the best in something that might turn out to be tragic. That’s what got Debbie and me working together. Together we’re a lot better because we can be critical of each other. It’s painful but it’s good. The only pressure we have is the hope that we can keep doing this."

What advice would you give to prospective artists?

"Don’t do it! Learn coding and then give us good rates when we ask you to code something. Do that and then become a Dennis and Debbie Club collaborator. Or a patron."