EMPIRE
A video art installation exploring the working class experience under the neoliberal policy in the global world order. EMPIRE was created as part of my graduate work at Ulster University. EMPIRE was composed of three pieces:
E1- New World Order (video)
New World Order opens with an extract from an interview with Wendy Brown, an American political theorist. In the interview, Brown explains clearly the basics of Neoliberalism. New World Order is a reaction to the current degradation of working-class people’s social, economic and political realities. And proposes a means of taking control back into the hands of the people.
E2 - Basic Principles (video)
Basic Principles was created using footage of Milton Friedman, an advocate for global, free market capitalism.
‘People who don’t speak the same language, practice different religion, who might hate one-another if they ever met.’
- Milton Freidman
In the original video, Friedman attempts to sell capitalism and the market as a collective effort -The products you buy are created in different places across the globe. I wanted to use their video as a chance to highlight a commonality amongst exploited people. And to show how protest can be used as a unifying effort of achieving goals and making a powerful political statement.
E3 - Digital Comrades (projection)
Digital Comrades focuses on the digitalization of protest, civil disobedience, and activism. Taking material from contemporary protests that have gained serious momentum within the west; the ‘Take Back The City’ protests in Dublin, the tuition fee protests of 2010 in London, the 2017 Women's march in Washington DC and the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011.
Short Promo Trailer
Music
Blue Calx - Aphex Twin
Link to the bibliography of all the sources used in EMPIRE here.