NATIONAL
CENTRE FOR ART AND TECHNOLOGY, REIMS
10 MARCH – 19 MAY 1991
LA BASE, LEVALLOIS-PERRET
26 JUNE – 3 AUGUST 1991
The
installation is located in a pit and viewed from above. Down below,
15 LED message boards of varying sizes, planted in six tons of sand
specially flown in from Kuwait, display a steady stream of quotations
from the Bible juxtaposed with news dispatches from the war zone.
A vertiginous mise-en-abîme effect is produced by the myriad
reflections of the moving red LED lights in the full-length mirrors
that line the walls of the installation. Surrounded by these modern-day
electronic tablets of the law there stands a totem: a single video
monitor, surrounded by a battery of cameras like an obsequious head
of state at a photo op, playing television news clips from the war
non-stop at accelerated speed.