Touching Revolution, 2000

Touching Revolution entailed a series of telephone interviews with people from around the world for whom the experience of revolution figured prominently. These personal conversations were presented live to a large audience in the Phoenix Art Museum in an environment staged to mimic a news talk show. As amplified exchanges, the individual interviews were often conducted with a co-interviewer who engaged in the conversation and helped promote understanding across linguistic and cultural barriers. During the performance, loud busy signals rang, and international operators in various languages tried making connections, and at times calls were not connecting. The unpredictability of the experience in this way and the visceral reality of the conversations embodied the loss of control and the confusion that are common to the experience of revolution. The project generated a global network of shared experiences, spotlighting questions of personal relationships to political power, to mass media, and to one’s own response in the face of revolutionary change.

Two-hour dialogue-based event, hosted by Live Art Platform and the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ