There Will Be No Emergencies (Ground Without Figure)
Conrad Cheung for their show
The Threat, The
2024
Above: Video documentation by Conrad Cheung.
The audio is a speech I collaged from fragments of past authoritarian responses to police violence in the US since 1965. Sources for the collage fragments include public addresses by:
William Barr
Joe Biden
Michael Bloomberg
George H. W. Bush
Eugene McCain
Richard M. Daley
Ron Johnson
Daniel Linskey
Tim Longo (UVA Chief of Police)
Ed Koch
Jay Nixon
Jim Ryan (former UVA President)
Paul Schell
and Tim Walz.
The voice is an AI composite of the voices of several of the above listed.
The location of this work is a short walk from the former site of the University of Virginia’s student encampment for Gaza, which was destroyed by a SWAT team deployed by then-President James Ryan only weeks before this installation was built.
This audio played on a 24-hour loop.
The total length of the composition is 15:18.
Photo documentation by Conrad Cheung.
Materials: existing architecture, plastic boxwood, pine, spruce, acrylic sheets, concrete, rubberized stucco, latex paint, found and altered steel cage from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found steel clamp from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found slag from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found bricks from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found and altered military cargo nets, CCTV camera system, PA speaker with monologue read by modified AI voice clone, solar panels, cabling, hardware