Ben Franklin Dreams of His Immortal Soul (1990) - 20 min. video
is a three-channel video installation that was commissioned on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Franklin's death. The work presents a contemporary dreamscape of Franklin's thoughts on research, invention, politics, mischief, women, electricity, and language, and was installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1991. Following are summaries of the seven episodes that run on one of the three channels:
BEN FRANKLIN DREAMS OF METAPHYSICS
A solitary traveller moves through a river landscape. It is chaotic, electrified, metaphysical. Electrical flow is identified and analyzed and instructions are given for navigating through virtual space. A Rosicrucian metaphor is proposed.
"When moving through electrical current, it is important to perform the proper body movements. A precise regimen of actions is required lest the participants dislocate their cohesion as individuals and merge with the invisible world. While a few individuals have mastered the necessary skills to freely navigate through virtual space, and while the rigors of incarnation present for them no new difficulties, most are overcome by disabling questions about the nature of human reality, and succumb, eventually, to crippling doubts about their actions as moral agents and their continuity as conscious entities."
"Current flow is channelled and directed by initating resonant movement patterns. Mastery is gained through practice, commitment, and close observation. Electrical phenomena may be known by their consaguinity with storage, diversion, erosion, depth and velocity, and by gaining knowledge of and agility in these disciplines, the current carrier will gain glimpses of a larger significant pattern. Electrical stimulation is the result."
"In this fashion, one may navigate and express a boundary between simultaneous, contradictory, virtual perspectives. A certainty of paradox derives."
is a three-channel video installation that was commissioned on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Franklin's death. The work presents a contemporary dreamscape of Franklin's thoughts on research, invention, politics, mischief, women, electricity, and language, and was installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1991. Following are summaries of the seven episodes that run on one of the three channels:
BEN FRANKLIN DREAMS OF METAPHYSICS
A solitary traveller moves through a river landscape. It is chaotic, electrified, metaphysical. Electrical flow is identified and analyzed and instructions are given for navigating through virtual space. A Rosicrucian metaphor is proposed.
"When moving through electrical current, it is important to perform the proper body movements. A precise regimen of actions is required lest the participants dislocate their cohesion as individuals and merge with the invisible world. While a few individuals have mastered the necessary skills to freely navigate through virtual space, and while the rigors of incarnation present for them no new difficulties, most are overcome by disabling questions about the nature of human reality, and succumb, eventually, to crippling doubts about their actions as moral agents and their continuity as conscious entities."
"Current flow is channelled and directed by initating resonant movement patterns. Mastery is gained through practice, commitment, and close observation. Electrical phenomena may be known by their consaguinity with storage, diversion, erosion, depth and velocity, and by gaining knowledge of and agility in these disciplines, the current carrier will gain glimpses of a larger significant pattern. Electrical stimulation is the result."
"In this fashion, one may navigate and express a boundary between simultaneous, contradictory, virtual perspectives. A certainty of paradox derives."
- BF Dreams of Erotic Bliss 4:00
The erotic subtext of Poor Richard's Almanac is blatantly announced using two pieces of rope, music by Bach, and text by Franklin.
- BF Dreams an Electrical Hoax 1:00
Plays off of Franklin's infamous Polly Baker hoax, a cunning fraud by which Franklin argued strongly for a pro-natalist position. An inert optical toy is examined as if it were pre-conscious fetal tissue. The politics of research.
- BF Dreams a New Music 2:15
Contemporary and tribal methods of sound production are juxtaposed to suggest a transtechnological duet, a cultural concatenation, a riff. (CF. Franklin's invention of the glass harmonica.)
- BF Dreams of an Instrument of Vision 2:00
An apparition analyzes the nature of its insubstantiality. A scientific demonstration of projection and fragmentation, split vision beyond bifocals.
- BF Dreams of Revolt 3:40
A post-electrical revolutionary enactment. An operatic manifesto presented by the electro-magnetic waves of the universe in which they renounce the agency they have provided for human objectives. A perverse fusion of Franklin's political and electrical interventions.
- BF Dreams of His Immortal Soul 3:00
The camera rises along the suspension cables of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Ascent, omen, transfiguration, dissolution; an afterlife in language.