Korpys/ Löffler
The Nuclear Football Film, DV, transferred to DVD, 30:30 min., 2004
The Last American Slides, Ultraviolet ink on black-lite film, 260 × 135 cm (three-part), 2004
Starting point of the film
The Nuclear Football,
on which the installation by Korpys/Löffler centres, is the state visit
of the American President George W. Bush to Berlin in May 2002. As they
were accredited journalists it was possible for the two artists to
document the event, from Bush’s arrival at Tegel Airport to his visit
to Schloss Bellevue. The film’s main focus, however, is not the
president, but an unobtrusive bag called The Nuclear Football, which is
always kept within an American president’s reach and allows him to
declare nuclear war at any time in the event of an attack on the USA.
In their work, the artist duo Korpys/Löffler analyse the border zones
of official versions of history and focus attention on the aspects that
normally go unnoticed – such as the furnishings in conspirative
apartments used by the terrorist group Red Army Fraction (RAF).
Similarly The Nuclear Football also tracks the events surrounding
Bush’s state visit that lie outside the attention of journalists: the
organisational and logistic preparations of protocol and security
officers. The theatricality with which these preparations are carried
out is unsettling, and one often has the feeling of watching patterns
in the way the people behave that derive from spy movies and political
thrillers.
The emotive soundtrack and a mysterious voiceover
whisper that comments on the events contribute to the impression that
everything is fictional play-acting. However, if one primarily sees the
state visit as a stage production for the media, which it actually is,
then ‘real’ security operatives and employees become actors in this
play. Confronted with this stage-managed friendly visit, but with the
knowledge of that small black suitcase at the back of one’s mind, one
gets a rather uncomfortable feeling and also realises how small the
spectrum of reality is that is normally represented by news programmes.
In the installation, the film is shown together with pages
reproduced from the book The Last American byJ.A.Mitchell, published
in1889.Thissciencefiction novel is the fantastic report of an
archaeological expedition in the year 2951 to the remains of a vanished
culture: the ruins of America, which has been completely destroyed.
Katharina Fichtner
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