David Merrill

San Francisco, CA

[research]

[publications]

[installations & performances]

Main >> Performances & Installations >> Applause

Applause :: Mini movie theater, archival video footage, custom electronics and software.

Jeff Lieberman, Josh Lifton,
Hayes Raffle, David Merrill 2005

Applause is an interactive group video installation that addresses issues of politics and control in our daily lives. Visitors walk into a mini movie theater and approach three microphones facing three vertically stretched freeze-frame videos. Small signs instruct the visitors to applaud to begin the show. Claps into the microphones progress the corresponding movies, and archival film footage plays. Boys throw each other in the air, run around a campground and laugh together. Groups of children gather in anticipation of an exciting event.

Suddenly everything changes and things begin to feel very wrong.

Sponsored (in part) by a Director's Grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT

Press:

New York Times article "Art That Puts You in the Picture, Like It or Not" (scan coming soon)
Arts Media magazine article "When Aesthetic Meets Incorrect" (JPG)

Exhibitions:

Boston Cyberarts 2005: MIT STATA CENTER Cambridge, MA April 23 - May 10
Collision Seven, chance. Art Interactive Gallery Cambridge, MA. April 2-10, 2005.