PROJECT Script: Franco is Still Dead | Multi-channel sound and video art installation created for a specific architectural structure | Contemporary Art | Collaboration | Cross-Cultural - Ann Burke Daly

SCRIPT: FRANCO IS STILL DEAD by SPECERE LAB, artists Ann Burke Daly and Álvaro Marcos, presents a multichannel sound and video installation Wednesday May 3, 2017, at Vassar College. [Photo by Karl Rabe].

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SCRIPT: FRANCO IS STILL DEAD

SPECERE LAB produced an immersive four channel video - three channel sound installation Spring 2017 on the Vassar College campus for their collaboration SCRIPT: FRANCO IS STILL DEAD. In brief, Specere Lab envisions this installation as a film script in revision, materialized using sound and video projection integrated with the architecture of the space. It includes political speeches, archival film and music, with their original sound, video, and writing for the piece.

The scenes of SCRIPT: FRANCO IS STILL DEAD are built around two important moments/speech acts for post-dictatorship Spain, the first, the announcement November 20, 1975 of Franco's death to the nation of Spain, and the second, the chant of the 15M/Indignados social movement of 2011 "they do not represent us" referring to the two ossified political parties of Spain (PP/PSOE) which are a legacy of the Transición to democracy following Franco's death in 1975, and are seen by some Spaniards as the source of graft, corruption, and "austericide" in contemporary Spain.

The focus for the installation is on marked and unmarked sites of mass graves, and completely unmarked sites of prisons and torture centers 'hiding in plain sight/site' in the center of Madrid. The collaboration began with a question of whether the pact of silence and Amnesty Law of the immediate post-dictatorship years created a tacit public silence in its wake. Silence and the raucousness of a silence which does not rest is central to this iteration of the project. The collaboration continues to look at what happens in the wake of catastrophe —of what is buried and what counter-narratives are silenced—in the wake—in the "Afterwar/ds."

The duo of SPECERE LAB is Ann Burke Daly (Artist, NY) and Ãlvaro Marcos (Musician, Spain's DIY scene). An unlikely year long correspondence is a central component of their cross cultural and inter-generational collaboration, and the correspondence itself is represented as a 50 foot x 2 foot photograph in the installation. They are working under a Mellon-funded Residency and Grant this semester at Vassar College, initiated by Political Science Professor Katherine Hite for her seminar "The Politics of Memory."

Photos and Video/Audio Info: Images taken at Vassar College AULA during May event or during testing. The video is largely long still takes. Scene 1 (Architectures of Silence) opens with a shot from the POV of the tomb site called The Valley of the Fallen, where Dictator Francisco Franco and 30-60K civil war dead and post-civil war "disappeared" persons are interred. Many captured anti-fascists were imprisoned and taken on "paseos" (walks), executed, and buried in mass graves in the years immediately following the civil war (1936-1939). Those who were imprisoned were responsible for part of the building of the huge memorial, basilica, and monestery that comprise Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) just outside of Madrid. It is from the point of view of the dead and those who worked on the building of the site that we choose to shoot, instead of re-producing the vision of the monument to Franco that the Valle de los Caidos was at the time of its building (such as tourist-like shots of the gigantic crucifix atop the mountain and monumental architecture). Many discussions and debates currently circulate in Spain around what should become of this huge site.

The AULA space is part of Ely Hall at Vassar College and is a wood and brick 45 foot x 65 foot two storied space.

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SPECERE LAB: ANN DALY AND ALVARO MARCOS SPECERE LAB:
ANN DALY AND ALVARO MARCOS INTERDISCIPLINARY ART AND SOUND 2017

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ANN BURKE DALY

SCRIPT: FRANCO IS STILL DEAD