WTF 2020

A puppet pandemic web series…

WTF 2020 is a web series created by Ann Magnuson with Adam Dugas. The series launched in March, 2020, shortly after the stay-at-home orders were announced. Using dolls crafted by her Grandma Magnuson, Ann wrote and performed the episodes, which were edited and augmented by Adam.

While nominally telling the story of Dust Bunny and Arzetta navigating the pandemic, the episodes are also a diaristic document of life in 2020, incorporating psychedelic dreams, the summer's social unrest, and the testing site at Dodger Stadium. Inspired by a group reading of War & Peace that launched in March, both artists read the novel, which in turn led to the characters reading the book and becoming a touchstone throughout the series. The final episode, an epilogue, premiered on January 2, 2021.

Contributing artists:
Randolph A. Hudson III (Bongwater) provided original scoring;
Sound artist and composer William Basinski offered tracks from his album “Lamentations” Guest voice artists included actors Zachary Street and Terry Sweeney (SNL).

The project was featured on the following online exhibitions:
Empirical Nonsense Daily
The Isolation Collection

ANN MAGNUSON: I’ve been making videos with my grandmother’s homemade “outsider art” dolls for years but only shared them privately for Facebook friends. When our world drastically changed and we all had to stay isolated, Adam Dugas and I created this no-budget DIY web series using these dolls and letting them voice all the fears, hopes and anxieties that have appeared along with Covid-19. I had a live musical theater show planned for July called WTF 2020 --addressing the madness of Trump’s America -- but there was no way any theater or club would be safe to open so I adapted the concept for the internet. I’ve always worked with my dreams in my writing, music and performances and in this web series I have incorporated the nightmares. The dolls voice the neurosis of the collective unconscious as they attempt to survive and they also explore multiple Jungian archetypes as a psychedelic process for healing. Joseph Campbell describes this process in his book “The Hero’s Journey” where the individual uses adversary as a Catalyst to fight personal demons, throw off the shackles of “the provisional self” and achieve a psychological wholeness and then the ultimate metamorphosis into a purely spiritual being.

ADAM DUGAS: WTF 2020 has been an amazing project with which to channel my feelings and thoughts about what the pandemic has caused and revealed. This collaboration has been a powerful way to share these reactions with film language. The puppet dolls, which Ann’s grandmother crafted decades ago, are animated by Ann - Dust Bunny exhibits unbridled fear and anxiety, while Arzetta provides the calming, rational voice that plunges into Jungian analysis. It’s like dramatizing what might be going on in Ann’s brain - I know mine has many competing voices reacting to what’s going on! The extra ingredients are the found footage elements, which are transformed from their original intent to something strange and magical. The mundane and the majestic - all valid, all one!