Midlands: Setting
2018
Video still
7:34
Midlands: Setting begins with a closely framed image of a judge’s bench. The camera pulls back, revealing the chair is in a grand, well-lit space. The panning camera raises further, revealing itself to be a drone moving through a two-story space, recording the red velvet chairs. From this aerial viewpoint, one can see vaulted ceilings, and wooden seats within a courtroom. Hovering over the witness chair, the drone looks back the familiar but empty courthouse.
https://vimeo.com/335936186/601d2d97f7
Midlands: Character
2018
Video still
7:34
Midlands: Character begins with a close up shot of a Google doc with the words “Midlands Courthouse” typed in simple font. The camera pans back to reveal the setting is a Google doc, with scrolling legal screenplay. “Prosecutor” and “Defense Attorney” characters actively comment on the Google doc, offering their internal thoughts about the movements and gestures of the courtroom drama described.
https://vimeo.com/335940447/bede48bbd6
Midlands: Prop
2018
Video still
7:34
Midlands: Prop opens on a computer program with the blinking text “Begin to scan”. A green then blue digital material grows in the central frame. As the camera pans the blue material develops, a men’s blazer is formed. When the scan is complete, the blazer disappears and then returns as a shiny yellow coat.
https://vimeo.com/335942164/ab5481f28a
Witness Lab (Community High School)
2020
Installation and Performance
25’x30’x9’
Witness Lab is an architectural courtroom installation and performance series, which hosts mock trials, court transcript readings, and trial advocacy workshops. The visible courtroom on campus will host legal simulations from participating groups including The Trial Advocacy Society and the Oral Argument Competition from the University of Michigan Law School, as well as the undergraduate team of the Collegiate American Mock Trial Association. Art students will observe and document the courtroom performances through drawing, text, photography, and video.
Witness Lab (Shakespeare’s Courtroom scenes, Gillian Eaton’s class)
2020
Installation and Performance
25’x30’x9’
Witness Lab (University of Michigan Museum of Art install)
2020
Installation and Performance
25’x30’x9’
Legal Simulation and Non-linear Time (Double Jeopardy GIF)
2019
GIF still
7 sec
A performative lecture about time in Midlands, the fictional state in which all Mock Trial Cases are set. Three illustrative GIFs included.
https://burnaway.org/magazine/legal-simulation-and-non-linear-time/
Simulations (University of Alabama School of Law)
2020
Digital Print
18’’x24’’
Simulations (University of North Carolina School of Law)
2020
Digital print
12’’x16’’
Simulations (Liberty University, Supreme Court Replica)
Digital print
32x40
2022
Simulations is a photo installation that includes images of practice courtrooms at law schools across the American South. The series depicts spaces that simultaneously function as courtroom, classroom, and theater. These sites occasionally host the actual adjudication of law, for example a state appellate case, and thus blur the boundaries between real and staged experience. The images address this interwoven architecture of training, performance, and power.
The first exhibition of this work was at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia as part of the Working Artist Project Fellowship: https://mocaga.org/calendar/courtneymclellan/