Who, What, Where, When, Why and How is a new performative work by Rod Dickinson in collaboration with Steve Rushton that interrogates the historical form and role of the presidential speech and press briefing. Set in a meticulously constructed press conference environment, two actors will deliver a simulated 45 minute press briefing.
Television and the moving image have long shaped not only how dramatic events such as conflicts are perceived, but also how and if they happen. The script of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How is composed solely of fragments of press statements from the cold war onward and focuses on the way in which similar declarations and political rhetoric have been repeated and reused by numerous governments across continents and through the decades to justify acts of state sanctioned violence.
Mirroring real press briefings, the live address will be filmed and photographed. The footage will form the basis for a subsequent video piece. But the obvious presence of the cameras is also more fundamentally connected with the ways in which the press statement is part of feedback mechanism where it is carefully constructed for the template of television and current affairs programs which disseminate it, and which in turn shape political and social reality.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
