Summary
[Mike Ladd] and [Vijay Iyer], a music producer and an award-winning jazz pianist, respectively, first collaborated on a 2004 spoken-word oratorio, In What Language. Then the Abu Ghraib prison scandal got them to start thinking about the possible relationships between atrocity, media and viewers. As network coverage developed critical mass in April 2004, Iyer recalls, "We really began to watch ourselves watching ... and that ultimately became what we were more qualified to speak on." For Ladd, understanding his own role (and possible complicity) in the media became a key concern: "Unfortunately, we're always 'functional,'" Ladd notes. "We are always serving the spectacle at some point."
LADD: A foot soldier is a really good analogy. There's also this sort of innocence when you hear reporters talk about their work-there's a "I'm just following orders" type of innocence they always convey. You know one part of them had to be incredibly calculated just to get into their position. But you also know another part is frantically scrambling, just like a soldier in combat who has no idea, when the event happens, of what they're supposed to do, really.IYER: It's so devious, in a way. But it's also just for "sense," just as you say-not about constructing meaning so much as constructing a sensation that people want to keep coming back to, where meaning gets kind of insidiously placed inside. It's performance, so your attention is drawn to the surface, essentially. When you're looking at the news, you're looking at a flat screen. And you become an aspect of that flat screen, you see you're reflected in it.See the full content of this document
Extract
An Interruption in Programming
It's one of the routines of daily life: You sit for a moment-over breakfast, over coffee, at the end of the day. You read the paper; you either listen to or watch the news. It's a special moment-the moment in which composer Vijay lyer and performance poet Mike Ladd would like to say one word:
Gotcha.We actually become the still life in question when the commentators are on. And what that s...See the full content of this document
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