WEBVTT

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[Kara Walker & Jason Moran:
Sending Out A Signal]

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[Steam calliope plays in the distance]

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[Kara Walker]

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[Walker, reading] "Enslaved Africans."

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"In the 1720s,
at a spot of land now eroded by the river,"

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"stood the barracks where enslaved Africans
from the Senegal-Gambia region"

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"were held before being ferried
across the river"

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"to the slave auctions."

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"Early Algiers Point was also the home
of the slaughterhouse and the powder magazine"

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"for New Orleans."

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It made me think about

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the under representation of memorials
about the institution of slavery in America.

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[Steam calliope continues]

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[Jason Moran]

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--[Moran] That one there is sharp.

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--[Man] Okay, let me grab my gloves.

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[Walker] I had been to New Orleans,

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and we went to Algiers Point.

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[Algiers Point, New Orleans]

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There was this crazy music playing

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and I thought it was coming from a church

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or something.

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And I was sort of, like, doing this...

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"What is that!?"

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It was just kind of, like, in the air,
and I couldn't place...

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It was kind of carnival-esque,
but I couldn't place it.

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So then I researched it.

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[Moran] Right.

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[Walker] And I found out it was a steam calliope
on the riverboat Natchez.

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My calliope and its container are the
"Katastwóf Karavan".

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[Moran] Listening from Algiers Point,

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listening to the calliope on the Natchez,

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what were you hearing in those songs
that they chose?

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[Walker] It was kind of happy songs.

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When I heard it,
I couldn't quite place the tunes,

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but I think they were kind of like
old-timey, good-time songs.

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[Moran] Right.

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They have a code in them that always
makes people feel a certain way.

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Like a password for something else.

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[Walker] That kind of wistfulness that
some White Southerners would regard slavery--

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or those bygone days.

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It's a wistfulness not just for the control
or the power,

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but for the intimacy.

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[Moran] Wow.

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[Walker] The intimacy of what those
enslaved people's bodies meant to theirs.

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Mind, body, soul.

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And that something like that--

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that it's so unsavory,
you can't even quite speak it.

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That's what those songs do for me, in a way.

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[Moran] In thinking about the way
that you are also

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touching the industrial with how slavery works--

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it's an industry, that they're making a machine
despite that they are bodies.

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[Walker] Yeah.

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[Workshop Art Fabrication, Kingston, NY]

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[Walker] I wanted to really create this
paradoxical space

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where the ingenuity of American manufacturing--

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the same genius that brought us chattel slavery--

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could then become the mechanics through which

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those voices that were suppressed
reemerge for all time.

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--It is really a moment of truth, isn't it?

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--Oh my God!

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Everything was outside of my comfort zone.

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Every single element of it except, in a way,
the framing of the calliope,

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because it was just the visual hook,
in a way.

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--It's pretty substantial.

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--It has to be an active, vital thing,
not just a stationary monster,

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--because that would defeat the purpose
of a moving monument.

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--Let me see if I have...

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[Sound of steam calliope playing from phone]

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--[Man] Is that Jason playing?

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--[Walker] That's Jason abusing it, yeah.

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--Jason was really freaked out

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--because of course he hits a note
and it comes out like...

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[Walker makes a high-pitched yelp]

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--And he's just used to hitting the keys
and something reasonable happens.

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[All laugh]

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--So that was the first time we saw the calliope.

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--This is first time we're seeing the calliope
in its wagon.

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[Moran] I just was anxious to meet this instrument

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that I'd only heard once in my life.

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So I never forgot what that sound makes
the body feel.

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Because it's unsettling, even though
it's trying to play the most settling music.

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The calliope also sounds like someone whistling.

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[Walker] Yeah.

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[Moran] So it seems like,

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[Moran whistles a melody]

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[Walker] So good!
[Laughs]

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[Moran] Like, that someone whistles this
as a way...

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Because that's also the way music is used
for people who are captive--

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that summoning,
that sending out of a signal.

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It's that it sends out a signal
whether it's a distress signal,

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or a signal to come,
like, "Let's celebrate together."

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[Prospect.4 triennial, closing weekend]

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[Steam calliope plays]

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So here would be a moment where you would
bring something to honor the millions of ancestors

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in a way that we aren't sure
what we're about to touch.

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[Walker] Exactly.

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That was my feeling going
into Algiers with it.

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[Steam calliope plays]

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As a stationary object,
it always needs to be activated.

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When you have monuments or
commemorative things that just exist,

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they sit there and they disappear.

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The Confederate monuments--

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these monuments that have been around for
a hundred years

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commemorating, like, Robert E. Lee--

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there's something strange that happens
where it just sits there

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and it becomes an unacknowledged presence.

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And there's something about that, too,

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where I feel like the calliope
has to be in a place,

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but not be forgotten.

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I don't feel like it's destined
for a specific home.

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What is unique to Algiers was that
it was the point

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for Africans arriving to be sold into slavery.

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There are many places like that in the Americas,

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and I think that it's worthwhile to explore
those places.

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The object of the calliope was quite small
until you played it,

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but I was wondering what it was like for you
to play it on the Mississippi.

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[Moran] I don't think I'd ever felt so much
pressure--

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and also that I was responsible
for releasing pressure

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at every key that I would play.

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[Steam calliope continues playing]

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[Walker] But when you played it,
all of that anxiety--

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and the fear,
and the pain--

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that feeling went away,

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because there's something voice-like
about those pipes.

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And you made it cry out.

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[Moran] Right.

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[Walker] And it's like,
ah, you feel it going right across you.

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[Steam calliope continues playing]