by Lauren DiGiulio on February 9, 2010
Beneath the scene’s cutting irony lies a subtle investigation of language’s relationship to power. Here, law enforcement’s strict adherence to the letter of the law rehearses the reliance of authority on language as a source of power. We see power derived directly from linguistic definition, delimiting itself according to the dictionary’s prescriptive code. Accordingly, each police officer must be the definition of a law enforcement official, and each offense of the law must be treated precisely as such. If language can here be read as an allegory of state power, then the act of definition performs as a metaphor for the law, delineating rules about how this society uses words much the way that laws demarcate boundaries of human behavior.
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by Lauren DiGiulio on January 7, 2010
The installation is centered on a group of five pianos whose cabinets have been stripped away to expose their inner workings. Sound is produced by mechanical manipulation of the instruments in several ways; the automatic movement of keys on some resembles traditional player pianos, while the strings of others are plucked directly with a mechanical arm. One instrument consists solely of a grand piano’s soundboard, plate, and bass strings, which is tilted vertically and played with a device that strums along the length of the strings. Here, the copper coils that wrap around the steel core of the string are physically articulated, resulting in a low ratcheting sound that adds a distinct tension to the music.
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