Ways of Reading / The Theatre of Press and Politics
My project deals with an edited-down moment in time that arose from a speech President Obama gave on the evening of September 9, 2009. The speech is referred to as the Obama Health Care Address and was given before a joint session of Congress. Midway through the speech the President was interrupted by South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, occurring when Obama rebuked a previously circulated notion that the proposed health care legislation would provide free health coverage for illegal immigrants. Immediately, Wilson bellowed out, “You lie!” The incident garnered the attention of the press as well as the political establishment. My project takes a slice from the official White House transcript of the speech and then layers under it content from the press in subsequent reaction to the Wilson outburst, in addition to an example of the distributed political propaganda that resulted in Obama addressing the illegal immigration topic to begin with. My objective is to demonstrate the reactionary immediacy that is a by-product of this age of information, and how it can reduce significant political discourse into shallow theatre. This project also examines the over-emphasis of conflict and its role in making an idle accusation a legitimate issue.
The Theatre of Press and Politics from Dustin York on Vimeo.
The idea behind this project is that it is a disjointed political conversation that the reader has the ability to interact with and reveal on their own terms. There is a strong symbolic and metaphorical component embedded in the construction of this piece, the outside content from news and political sources needs to be unraveled to reveal the crush of information shouting nearly identical refrains. Doing so interrupts and overshadows the surface content, and in the process muddles the linear sequence apparent at first glance. The reader can discover relationships between different articles, and also relationships to the original text that were never intended by the original authors. The inclusion of quoted content from within the intervening article excerpts gives the user the ability shape an unexpected conversation between what would otherwise be isolated and predictably-scripted sound bites.
The material included is edited down from its original form to emphasize certain aspects, but is laid out in the correct sequence. There are different colors of text to communicate the different natures of the text. The rationale for which excerpts of the original speech were included are hinted at by color. Gray is simply an indicator of who is speaking. Blue is text from the speech repeated either throughout the course of the speech (the word ‘now’ was repeated 32 times) or a repeated word or conceit present at that particular moment in the speech, occupying the theme of that instant. In this case, any reference to an untruth or a lie was included in blue. Green is text that represents live audience reactions to the speech. Finally, examples of black text are the statements that constitute Obama’s reaction to a specific event. In this case, the President’s statement is intended to directly contradict information circulated in regard to health care for illegal immigrants. The schema for what is included from outside internet and media sources is that the article title, included date of publication, and any reference to a specific person within the article is printed in red. Orange is always quotations included within the article.
This project could very effectively expand to apply to multiple instances of political speeches in how it reveals the intimate relation of the political climate to the media environment. It is a way to hold in your hand these trivial instances that get blown out of proportion and to craft one’s own conclusions with the raw materials that the individual characters provide. If this particular method of interpretation and examination of a political speech and its surrounding influences were to apply to multiple speeches over the course of time it would reveal snapshots of shifting cultural attitudes both in regards to the content and the interpreter. It would also chronicle the careers of prominent politicians and their influence over the national landscape as it rises and falls in due course.
Pairing a series of tangible pieces, like the constructed instance shown, with digital pieces chronicling the same event and the same information would reveal different strengths and truths afforded to each medium. While digital materials would be effective in displaying a vast breadth of text and one could craft a much more structured pacing and narrative, the strength of the physically constructed piece is that there are opportunities to break free from a tendency for passive interaction and allow for more tangibly-generated symbolic meaning. If there were a series of instances using both mediums, and even where the physical interaction informed the behavior of the digital interface, it would reveal a lot of opportunities for creating a unique, multi-faceted, and productive user experience.
For further examples on how the project got to this point, visit the process page.