The Concept of Conceptual Art:
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change our world in different ways. At different times of our life they are, one
hopes, just the sorts of conversations we need.
Third Installation
You Are Here: The Map Precedes the Territory—Live Satellite Feed from Iraq,
2008 (Chicago)
Description: A large sprawling installation with a table made ffom
120-year-old bam wood as its foundation sits inside a darkened room. The
central table has the majority of items with which the public is asked to interact.
A satellite dish affixed to a 9’ pole with a blinking strobe light is attached with
cables to a wooden crate sitting on the table. Inside the crate there is a black and
white monitor. The viewer is told that it is possible to see a live video feed ffom
Iraq, scanning the desert across 360-degrees every 300 seconds. When one puts
one’s head into the crate, one can see the images of the video feed and even hear
fighter jets pass over ffom time to time as well as people yelling in Arabic in the
distance. In reality, the images are a recorded loop, and the desert is just outside
Las Vegas. If the viewer waits long enough, the outline of the Las Vegas Strip
comes into ffame, the loud and abrupt sound of a slot machine paying off is
heard, and the film flashes the words “YOU ARE NOT HERE BUT YOU ARE
HERE” in bright white before resetting. What the people in the distance are
yelling in Arabic are such things as: “This is not what you think it is. You are
here but you are also there. You do not know where you are. The structures that
Support There and Here are the same,” etc. There are two WWII battlefield
telephones on the table. Both are connected to hidden tape players also set on a
loop. The visitor is encouraged to pick up the phones and hear a conversation.
The first conversation is in Arabic and concems the nature of Simulation, Jean
Baudrillard, capitalism, and what constitutes our view of reality and how this
makes political occupation possible. The other conversation is an edited Version
of President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech in which he
appears to be talking to himself. Also on the table are several other items,
including books (the most important of which is an antique book on the military
use of maps that also contains English translations of all of the Arabic spoken in
the recorded pieces in the installation). Near the central table there are
ffeestanding side tables and bam doors resting to the sides of the table like
ramps. Plastic army figures, many of which are bumed and melted, are
mounting an invasion of the table up the bam door ramps. A reel-to-reel tape
recorder is at floor-level where the army figures begin; some of the figures are
on the reels, spinning. The tape that is playing—at a volume so low that one has
to sit down on the floor and put one’s ear to the Speaker—is a recording of a
soldier talking about post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearby, a restored,
animated, 70-year-old, wooden mannequin in the form of a young boy is
wearing a Soviet-issued gas mask, waving his arms when motion sensors
indicate someone has come near. In one hand he holds a royal straight flush