As a part of P.S. 122's Coil Festival, Temporary Distortion presents a rather unsettling but realistic look at the New York Police Department, Newyorkland. Using both live-action and video, the work follows four cops who struggle with the rigorous demands of the city's police force, as they face daily decisions on what's right and what's wrong. This isn't all off the cuff, either -- director and co-creator Kenneth Collins has police officers in his family, and video designer William Cusick researched hours of TV and movie cop behavior. I spoke with both Collins and Cusick on a conference call.
 
Hello, Kenneth, hello William. Tell me a little about how this show came about.
 
Kenneth Collins: The idea for the show first came from William who had watched The French Connection.  We'd recently worked on projects together where we deconstructed different film genres, and the initial idea for this piece was looking at cop movies for source material for this show.  As we got further along, we found ourselves more interested in fact than fiction.  So it became more of a deconstruction of the profession, rather than the film genre.
 
How will it be presented?
 
KC:  It's a mixture of film and live action.  All of our pieces are performed in a sculptural installation type of environment, and, on to that we project video.  So the actors are constantly surrounded by cinematic simulation during the show.  There are four actors on stage, all men.  The characters are all uniformed beat cops, in NYPD uniforms.
 
William, give me an idea of a scene we will see.
 
William Cusick: One example of a scene in the show is a series of phone calls that we, as the audience, get to overhear.  There's a police report of an assault incident, and a hit and run car accident.  We listen to police officers as they take these awful reports, the daily tragedies that occur in New York City.  And, on video there's a counterpoint; and we see a different perspective of police work..
 
Is the video from a movie or a TV cop show?
 
WC: All of the video is completely original.  All footage we shoot, we create and produce ourselves.  Nothing is ready made.  We take inspiration from the '70s and '80s cop movies and TV shows, and cop stories from that period, and we're creating our own interpretation on the video.
 
For instance, a number of police are at a crime scene, where there's a stab victim on the couch; a potential suicide incident where the cops have to talk a guy down. A drug bust and a chase scene ensue through a warehouse.
 
Kenneth, back to you.
 
KC: It really is the process; and the process is half rehearsing and performing the play, and half producing and making an independent film.
 
Tell me a little about your family connection to police work, Kenneth.
 
KC: My father and his brother were both cops in New Jersey.
 
What do they think about the show?
 
KC: My father has seen the video trailer.  My wife's sister is also a cop, and she's been to some rehearsals.  Also, one of the actors is NYPD.  We did have some police officers see the show as it was being built, and we were able to get some feedback.
 
Is there a through line, or a story, or a climactic scene?
 
KC: There's no narrative, nor a dramatic arc.  We've been framing the piece as an assemblage.  And because the idea is that you are bringing together a variety of different natures, and putting them in juxtaposition with each other, that's where the meaning comes form.  From what's on film, what's on stage, and the combination.  You're seeing many different aspects of police work, but there is no story told.  The meaning comes from the synthesis of all of it.
 
Baryshnikov Arts center, Howard Gillman Performance Space, 450 W. 37th St., (212) 352-3101. Jan. 12-28. $15-$20. More info here.