"Hangmen Also Die" is a programmed video installation on theme of collective memory and ideological corruption. It montages fragmented clips from a video monologue with a library of found images, structuring a 70-minute event as a cycle of determination, despair, and re-emergence.
Full Description
"Hangmen Also Die" begins with a live performance in which an actor (the same shown in the stills from the video installation) interacts with a projected video environment as he delivers a 13-minute monologue. When this live phase of the piece ends, the automated installation component is activated to continue, echo, and extend the live event. In the installation, video clips of the actor's monologue are embedded in a semi-randomized visual environment in ways that vary over time. Over the course of a 70-minute cycle, the piece is programmed to gradually break up and degrade, triggering successive attempts to salvage meaning by re-interpolating material. Because of the aleatory nature of the piece, no two cycles are ever identical.
The text for this piece is a poetic montage I wrote, incorporating text fragments by Bertolt Brecht, Heiner Müller, Arthur Koestler, and others. The title comes from a 1943 movie directed by Fritz Lang and written by Brecht, Lang, and John Wexley.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2010
- Submitted to ArtBase: Tuesday May 14th, 2013
- Original Url: http://www.forger.com/hangmen.html
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Work Credits:
- antoinettelafarge, co-creator, text, programming
- Robert Allen, co-creator, director
- Amy Kaczur, videography
- John Mellies, actor
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