Elizabeth Withstandley

Description

The Real Brian Wilson is a community-based project created to explore the
idea of individuality as it relates to one’s name. It began in late 2015 with the launch of a
website (TheRealBrianWilson.org) for the Brian Wilsons of the world to interact with and share
their own personal story. Through a six-month-long social media campaign, I solicited
participation from strangers that had nothing in common other than all sharing the same name.
Through the submissions, I came across a young writer in Northern Ireland and invited him to
be a more active participant. The project was realized with an installation that encompasses a
two-channel video presented with a series of artifacts including a series of handwritten letters
between Brian Wilson and me. The multi-channel video presents a duality between an individual
and a group of Brian Wilsons. One video shows an annual Brian Wilson meeting in which Brian
Wilsons of the world meet in Scotland in a sort of ‘self-help’ meeting typesetting. The other
video shows the lone experience of Brian Wilson in Northern Ireland who has stumbled across a
radio broadcast of the Brian Wilson meeting. The lone Brian Wilson travels through the unique
landscape of Northern Ireland, a country that has been struggling with it’s own identity since it’s
inception. The artifacts set up a narrative that enables the viewer to see into the project on
another level, providing them with information regarding the “real” Brian Wilson as an active
collaborator in the whole project.