until the story of the hunt is told by the lion / facing horror and the possibility of
shame 2011-2013
Kaldak Payam, Sudan 4 May 2011
immersive multimedia installation – 61 digital photographs, multi-channel spatial sound composition, animated backlight media, loud speaker system, plastics, electronics, programming, variable dimensions up to 20m2. Gratitude to Canadian Forces Captains Kevin Mason and Serge Duguay and the United Nations military observer team at the UN Mission in Sudan, teamsite Malakal.
until the story of the hunt is told by the lion / facing horror and the possibility of
shame 2011-2013
Kaldak Payam, Sudan 4 May 2011
immersive multimedia installation – 61 digital photographs, multi-channel spatial sound composition, animated backlight media, loud speaker system, plastics, electronics, programming, variable dimensions up to 20m2. Gratitude to Canadian Forces Captains Kevin Mason and Serge Duguay and the United Nations military observer team at the UN Mission in Sudan, teamsite Malakal.
until the story of the hunt is told by the lion / facing horror and the possibility of
shame 2011-2013
Kaldak Payam, Sudan 4 May 2011
immersive multimedia installation – 61 digital photographs, multi-channel spatial sound composition, animated backlight media, loud speaker system, plastics, electronics, programming, variable dimensions up to 20m2. Gratitude to Canadian Forces Captains Kevin Mason and Serge Duguay and the United Nations military observer team at the UN Mission in Sudan, teamsite Malakal.
until the story of the hunt is told by the lion / facing horror and the possibility of
shame 2011-2013
Kaldak Payam, Sudan 4 May 2011
immersive multimedia installation – 61 digital photographs, multi-channel spatial sound composition, animated backlight media, loud speaker system, plastics, electronics, programming, variable dimensions up to 20m2. Gratitude to Canadian Forces Captains Kevin Mason and Serge Duguay and the United Nations military observer team at the UN Mission in Sudan, teamsite Malakal.
until the story of the hunt is told by the lion / facing horror and the possibility of shame is a meditation on the violent cultural realities that have brought about great dislocations, global migrations, and mixes of people –that have evolved the multiethnic, multicultural and multinational identities embodied in the postmodern global citizen. This work confronts the residues of violent conflict reflected by my 2011 experience traveling with the Canadian Forces peacekeeping service within the United Nations Mission in Sudan.
Like an energetic cloud, the electronic landscape lifts with the breeze –converges into the distance, vanishes to a point. The installation reveals the barren aftermath of yet another episode of collective armed violence –too far away to bear in mind. The battlefield is principally composed of documentation captured surreptitiously by military observers who were dispatched to investigate the incident. Inspired by the narrative elements shared with me by UN colleagues, I filled gaps in the record with photos captured during my tour combined with selected images borrowed from internet photo sharing sites.
While the artwork was conceived in memory of the people of Kaldak, southern Sudan, who were the victims of this calamity, the artwork challenges viewers to enter the scene along with me.
The field of 61 floor mounted colour photographic light panels is created with flexible backlight media and forensic style atrocity photography. A controlled fade animates the landscape with high frequency breath. The images are supported by a discrete scaffold system.
The four channel immersive soundscape provides audio context to support the encounter with the weathered residue of human violence. Four sound loops include a substantially redacted artist recital of a first-person witness account of the battle aftermath supported by three channels composed of open source elements –locusts and flies feasting, birds of prey vying for scarce resources and an synthetic ‘neutral male voice’ performing a statistical reading of world-wide battle related death tolls.
Jonathan Clouter (digital designer) Joel Silver (composer)
