LAN Party or “National Take Your Daughter to Work Day

In LAN Party or “National Take Your Daughter to Work Day” Noelle Mason grafts autobiographical narrative onto appropriated images, objects, and contexts in an attempt to negotiate the complexities of power, which reverberate between the interpersonal and institutional.  The resulting installation, or local area network (LAN,) implicates the viewer in an act of violence and uses the gallery as a medium to examine the historical precedence that affirms the authority of viewership.  In LAN Party a Remington M700 police sniper rifle is poised atop a domestic looking table.  A stool and headphone set invite the viewer to position herself behind the rifle, aimed at a small ornately framed monitor across the room.  The monitor which, can only be seen and heard when standing in close proximity, shows found footage taken through the lens of an American helicopter sniper as he targets and kills Iraqis on the ground.  The video is accompanied by a telephone recording of Ms. Mason’s father’s voice coolly describing the formal qualities of his own experience with the Remington M700 (weight, material, kickback.)  Outfitted with headphones and enabled by the magnifying powers of the rifle’s scope, the viewer across the room receives the sniper footage in concert with the original soundtrack—the voices of gunmen and the booming sound of shots being fired.

Filed under:
2-D, 3-D, Installation, Performance, Sculpture, Video by NoelleM