Nuclear Family

2001 • Directed by

Dana Plays

The film explores institutional and personal representations of memory and behavior through a complex interweaving of scientific documentation, animal behavior experiments and vintage pre-school footage. The approach is formalistic and optically printed material is used throughout. The drama of the nuclear family is played by a series of non-human subjects - ranging from mannequins used in 1950s nuclear blast experiments, to doves playing ping-pong. The notion of family is experienced as iconic, nostalgic and a recollected remnant of the nuclear age.