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A portrait of America in 2020

from Smithsonian Treasures by Cities and Memory

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Piece based on Personification of America from the Smithsonian Design Museum, pre-1720:

"The concept of personifying America in an artwork led me to think of how we might personify America here and now, in 2020 and in the midst of a global coronavirus pandemic.

"Very sadly, to the majority of the world, the personification of America in 2020 is President Trump, and he is characterised by his grotesquely irresponsible handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the increasingly-erratic and paranoid dealings with the media.

"The body of the piece, right down to the notes used, is intended to personify America - I took the notes A, E, C and A from the word "America", and then used the most basic letter-to-number cipher on the letters M, R and I to give the numbers 13 + 18 + 9. The resulting number 4 + 0 from 40 gave 4, or D, as the final note to be used in the piece.

"Putting the piece together over a couple of weeks, I found myself having to resample the news time and again, as seemingly every couple of days President Trump would make an incredible declaration about Covid-19, from claiming that light or bleach could cure it, to taking an anti-malarial drug himself in an attempt to protect himself from the disease.

"The piece is topped and tailed by Paul Robeson's hopeful anthem "What is America to me?", which is a place I hope the US can return to very soon in a post-Trump world."

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from Smithsonian Treasures, released June 1, 2020

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Cities and Memory Oxford, UK

Cities and Memory is one of the world’s biggest sound projects, a global, collaborative sound art and field recording programme with the aim of remixing the world, one sound at a time. It covers more than 100 countries and territories with 5,000+ sounds and more than 1,000 contributing artists.
Thousands of field recordings, recomposed and reimagined by artists around the world. ... more

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