Keep Their Heads Ringin’
2020–21
Sound installation; varying duration
2020–21
Sound installation; varying duration
Composed for Michelle Lopez for her work in A Few In Many Places, organized by Protocinema
I composed the audio work for this sound installation and performance that engages the symbolism of the Liberty Bell, one complicated by its famous crack. Philadelphia-based artist Michelle Lopez, most recently the subject of a solo exhibition at the ICA Philadelphia and a Guggenheim Fellowship, wanted to explore rising anti-Asian sentiment, including her own experiences growing up Asian-American. She also wanted to reflect the current wave of anti-Asian attitudes precipitated during Covid-19. She asked me to create an audio work.
Created in close dialogue with the artist, my work weaves together the ringing of traditional clock tower bells with pejorative uses of the phrase “ching-chong” and the instances of “ding-dong” found in popular music. Protocinema curator Mari Spirito writes, “Keep Their Heads Ringin’ questions notions of freedom, by lying bare the violence of institutional racism and its degradations. The accumulation of slander will slowly ring the reality of the current American climate by one ‘ding’ and one ‘dong’ at a time.”
More info here.
Created in close dialogue with the artist, my work weaves together the ringing of traditional clock tower bells with pejorative uses of the phrase “ching-chong” and the instances of “ding-dong” found in popular music. Protocinema curator Mari Spirito writes, “Keep Their Heads Ringin’ questions notions of freedom, by lying bare the violence of institutional racism and its degradations. The accumulation of slander will slowly ring the reality of the current American climate by one ‘ding’ and one ‘dong’ at a time.”
More info here.
Michelle Lopez, Tour Flag, Keep Their Heads Ringin’ event commissioned by Protocinema.2020-21, monument Robert Morris: Patriot, Statesman, Financier 1734-1806, flag screen printed by Cayla Lockwood and produced by Will OwenKeep Their Heads Ringin' Part II from Michelle Lopez on Vimeo.