Diplomat
The action begins with a warped record – a memorial album issued in 1964 featuring speeches by the then-recently assassinated American president John F. Kennedy. Purchased for $1.00 at a flea market in rural Wyoming, the record is heat-damaged and almost comically warped.
The durational filming concentrates on repetitive playing of Kennedy’s inaugural address, which is considered by many to be one of the most inspirational speeches in contemporary Western history. Due to the warping, each time the record is played a different variation of the speech is revealed. The needle bounces across the contorted surface, repeating certain phrases while completely skipping over others. What was once a consistent, fixed form becomes fragmented. Kennedy’s skillful rhetoric is dissected through chance and his message edited at random, disrupting the polished theatricality of the speech as a performative piece of history. Over the 7 hours of repeated playing, the record begins to deteriorate. Highlighting its own fragility, the act of playing it destroys it.
Commissioned for Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Open Online 7 ‘Can You Hear Me?’ (2016)
• HD monitor
• Coded Arduino control system
• Headphones, cable
Comments 0
Say something