Wars and Rumors of Wars (2015)
3 October - 16 November 2015, Seed Space Lab at Track One, Nashville (solo show)
Interactive audio installation; motion detectors, speakers, Arduino, MacBook Pro
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burnaway.org review
Nashville Scene blurb
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Wars and Rumors of Wars presents the history of American foreign and security policy over the last three decades in an interactive audio installation. As visitors move around the gallery, they trigger trip-beam motion detectors, thereby unleashing historical audio samples drawn from addresses to the nation, congressional hearings, military and intelligence briefings, and other publicly-available, declassified sources. A variety of different computer algorithms driving the installation offer visitors distinct experiences of history that are determined in large part by visitors' own movements through the gallery. At times, visitors may simultaneously hear speeches on Iraq from a diverse array of US presidencies; at other times, they may need physically to pursue a single voice around the gallery to prevent that voice from falling silent. Visitors may engage the installation in a variety of different ways, paralleling different modes and degrees of citizen engagement in contemporary politics.