[sounds of camera shutter rhythmically repeating]
[Performance dome]
[Liz Magic Laser, Artist]
[Liz has decoded the unspoken language of political rhetoric.]
[Two presidential speeches are being performed...without words.]
[Alan Good, Dancer]
[Cori Kresge, Dancer]
[Seven weeks earlier]
[LIZ MAGIC LASER] --Okay, so I’ll start the camera going.
[sounds of camera shutter rhythmically repeating]
[Chelsea, Manhattan]
[Liz Magic Laser Talks to the Hand]
So we were just working through Obama's most recent State of the Union.
[BARACK OBAMA] --Mr. Speaker,
--Mr. Vice President,
--members of Congress...
[LASER] We had it on mute.
--[OBAMA] ...distinguished guests...
[LASER] We were looking exclusively at his arm and hand gestures.
For instance the first gesture we decided was "Here I am".
--Here I am.
--Left over right.
--Interlace.
[LASER AND KRESGE IN, UNISON] --Point,
--one, two, three, four, five, six.
[BOTH LAUGH]
--[KRESGE] Left over right.
--[LASER] Let's also play with the pacing,
--maybe try to go twice the speed.
--Is it too fast?
[KRESGE] I think I’ve always seen politics as something very abstract.
What are they saying?
--[OBAMA] Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because...
[KRESGE] What do they mean when they’re saying that?
I find it more accessible to just look at their body language.
I'm not really even thinking about what he's saying.
--[OBAMA] That's not right.
--Americans know that's not right.
[KRESGE] I usually tune that part out, to be honest.
[LAUGHS]
[LASER] I was struck by the virtuosity of Obama's movement.
And I started to wonder about the choreography that is being used
to persuade the public.
These rhetorical techniques can be traced back to Francois Delsarte.
He developed a system of oratory to teach actors, priests, and politicians
how to to win over their audience.
He talks about this imaginary cube that you have in front of you.
Touching the bottom side means you're going to take care of people.
And on top, you're communicating that you have possession--
that you have control over the issues at hand.
Our working title for the piece is, "The Digital Face".
Why would Delsarte call something the digital face in the 19th century?
Five digits means five fingers,
so he's talking about the drama of the hands.
And so I started to look back at previous State of the Union addresses.
[JIMMY CARTER] --We will meet these threats to peace.
[LASER] I had assumed that Reagan would be the first to be animated,
but he just held his script
and he didn’t move his hands or arms at all.
The camera pulls back but he’s still not using his hands.
[RONALD REAGAN] --...and God bless America.
[LASER] The first president to use his hands and arms quite actively was Bush Sr.
[GEORGE H.W. BUSH] --And he begins his speech to his fellow citizens with these words--
--words of a distant revolution. We hold these truths to be self-evident...
[Six week later]
[LASER] I decided to put Bush Sr. into a gestural dialogue with Obama,
to show how politicians have come to maximize the efficiency of every move they make.
--[OBAMA] Nearly one trillion dollars...
[LASER] Speech coaches use the camera as a tool to dissect and perfect individual movements.
In turn, we used stop action photography during the rehearsal
to optimize the mechanics of the performer's movements.
--I should really get a rehearsal going.
We decided to amplify the sound of the camera shutter clicking.
This tone of mechanical efficiency became the soundtrack to the piece.
[ALAN GOOD] I saw two things from Bush.
One was, he's a snake in the sense that he pounces quickly
with no muscle coiling beforehand.
These very quick hand movements that came out of nowhere...
It's kind of like being knifed.
--[LASER] Great.
--Fantastic.
--Let's do it one more time.
[KRESGE] Liz and I would come up with our own little language for Obama.
It would be like a spank.
Or not looking at the thing that you're talking about because it's bad
or it's not American.
There’s a subliminal quality.
--[LASER] Okay, great. [APPLAUDS]
--Let's do it.
[KRESGE] There's one moment that I really love.
He's talking about, "This generation knows that we will only endure..."
--[OBAMA] Our way of life will only endure...
[KRESGE] He does this delicate plucking of some flower.
It's like he's suddenly heartbroken and asking the nation to endure with him.
[GOOD] In the United States, there's a general fear and loathing
of the power of government.
I feel this piece is saying,
there is a system of gestures, unbeknownst to us,
that looks into us and is being perfected as we speak.
[One week later]
[LASER] We are living in strange days
where performance itself has become the dominant instrument of power.
The style of someone's delivery ends up foreclosing the real content.
As spectators, we're being treated as lab rats to be impressed.
I'm asking myself,
"Can we reclaim some agency by getting our hands on the tools of mass communication?"