Race car drivers and astronauts wear similar uniforms: stylized bodysuits with visors and helmets designed to withstand gravitational forces and astonishing speeds as they travel around a central axis. Donut (2011), another video work in the exhibition, further reiterates the similarities between racing and space travel by juxtaposing the traces left by speeding cars on racetracks and the movement of rocket ships performing “bar-b-que rolls” (a flight pattern used to maintain an even temperature after leaving the Earth’s atmosphere). The video documents a boy and his father acting out two simultaneous, interrelated and parallel actions: eating an entire iced donut and making the family pickup truck do “donuts.” The temporality of the video echoes the shared circular form common to race tracks, donuts, and the flight path of rocket ships.

Brian McCutcheon
Donut, 2011
Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Courtesy of the Artist