Wearing a Spiderman suit used for paid gigs at children’s birthday parties, our hero lends a helping hand to David Letterman on his first broadcast after 9/11. The episode reads like a manual for masculine mourning. Tragedy briefly strains the figure of authority, before being quickly resolved and objectified into bravado (“the greatest city in the world“) and revenge (“how do we get these guys?“). I wanted to dilate this moment of authority scrambling to organize itself into a discrete hierarchical body, of precarious adulthood, and foggy guidelines for how to take death seriously.

Thanks to Samuel Horgan for his help in shooting this video.