Video art engulfs Fireside Lounge

By Kristen Peterson

Friday, May 12, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

The 40-ish brunette, with the billowing '80s hairstyle and perfectly applied makeup, leans over her vodka (straight up, one olive), scrunches her nose and asks the bartender about the noise from the video that has been playing over and over on the 15 large-screen plasma televisions throughout Peppermill's Fireside Lounge.

When the bartender explains that it's part of an art show, the woman squeals and smiles: "Oh, is it live or something?"

Then she immediately whispers, "I don't like it."

Behind her, a completely different reaction is taking place.

Other patrons who have trickled into the mirrored lounge specifically for the video installation, "Experiment Phantom Area," are slouched in pods of U-shaped sofas, mesmerized by the 28-minute video.

The Fireside - with its fire pool, fake plants and trees, selection of tropical drinks and colored lights - is known to locals as the partly hip, partly kitschy make-out place. It has been featured in several movies and, some say, ruined recently by its televisions blaring pop and rock videos.

But that's exactly what inspired the art project, conceived when New York artist Amy Yoes walked into the lounge in March. Yoes, who works in several mediums, had come to Las Vegas as an artist-in-residence at UNLV.

"I was completely enchanted by the Peppermill," Yoes says, her skin reflecting the pink glow of the dimly lit lounge.

She was pulled in by the fire pool and the TV screens that "magnify and fracture the space so it goes on for infinity," she says. "It's such a beautifully designed special interior that is unlike any place I have ever been."

On this Wednesday evening, her collaboration with Las Vegas media artist Catherine Borg is a living, breathing experience - originating in the lounge, mostly filmed in the lounge, showing in the lounge.

The video's slow pans over the flowers, the flaming pool and the lights of the bar result in an unintended surveillance effect, accompanied by a score of contrasting audio - from harsh mechanical sounds to muffled noises that were almost womb-like. Yoes says the sounds are intended to be "humorously otherworldly." Other video images are slow, meditative, abstract clips of blinking lights.

Dayvid Figler, writer, attorney, National Public Radio commentator and among the local culturati who showed up for Wednesday's premiere, says the project "is a great way to invigorate what was a horrible line of sight. Ever since the Peppermill installed the video screens, I've been less than happy about the place."

But Yoes and Borg's video project, he says, "complement the experience."

Artist Yvonne Lung was amused by the video's contrast to the Fireside experience and Las Vegas scene: "You know it's Vegas, but it's somewhat distorted, somewhat changed."

Borg explains that the video was not about the Peppermill, but about "our idiosyncratic synthesis of our sensibilities in relation to the space that Las Vegas creates, not the place Las Vegas is."

Using mirrors to create abstraction, the artists wanted to go beyond the "impenetrable veneer" of Las Vegas, Yoes says, and create a portal into another interpretation of an architectural space.

The artists hope to show the video outside Las Vegas . They received permission to show the piece at the Peppermill between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., a time most customers would not complain about the absence of news, sports or a rock video on the Fireside's screens.

A 7:40 p.m., however, "Experiment Phantom Area" was still happening.

"Until there's a complaint, it's going to be going on forever," said Elizabeth Blau, an artist who was at the lounge.

Ten minutes later, a sole screen behind the bar flipped to the Los Angeles Clippers-Phoenix Suns playoff game.

At 8, all other screens broke into a young pop songstress playing her guitar.

The crowd, about 50 people at one point, stood up almost in unison and slowly filed out . Borg, woven bag slung over her shoulder, soon followed as a Justin Timberlake video played in the now near-empty lounge.

Still at the bar, however, is the 40-ish brunette, who has switched from vodka to red wine and now is even more bewildered. Convinced the video was shot and played live, she says that she found it disturbing "on many levels," even though she appreciated some of it.

"The flowers were great," she says, "but why did they make a deliberate effort to eliminate all the people?"

Her male companion, visiting from Connecticut, says he is exposed to a lot of entertainment.

"If they had some good music, it would have been better," he says. "Some guitar music, maybe."