Installation View
This website was created ten years after Pinball Justice was made. A decade ago, toward the end of President Barack Obama's second term, police brutality and institutionalized injustice against Black and other people failed to be addressed in any socially constructive way. Of course the hope placed on Obama was his power to change American society, but its currents run deep—these cases and their acquittals symptomatic of the tide that brought Trump in.
Pinball Justice was inspired by two events: the acquittal of a Cleveland police officer that murdered two innocent Black persons at point blank range from the hood of their car, claiming he feared for his life; and a Chicago police officer that murdered a Black man, claiming the same from many yards away. The officers in both cases participated in excessive police actions. Video and imagery from both scenes disputing official accounts are used for the installation.
The installation involves two large video projections and a surround sound audio playback system. The video projections should be offset so that the rectangular horizontal projection with the animated gunshots in the Cleveland court functions like a Greek chorus against the central video of the Chicago Police. The audio should be loud. Pinball Justice was installed at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery January-March 2016, and Spaces in Cleveland, August 2016.
for Gnarwhallaby: Bb clarinet, trombone, piano, cello (2013)
The Dreamhouse of Herman Wallace was composed upon learning of Herman Wallace's death two days after a judge ordered his immediate release from solitary confinement at ANGOLA prison, where he lived for 41 years. Wallace was innocent of the crime that put him there. Several excellent articles about Herman Wallace and the Angola Three can be found online. Georgetown University Law Professor David Cole published a pertinent opinion piece on Herman Wallace, October 24, 2013, in the Washington Post.
The Dreamhouse of Herman Wallace takes its title from his correspondence (excerpted in the video) with artist Jackie Sumell, about which can be found at hermanshouse.org The final image of the video is by Jules Cowen, taken from julescowan.com.
The Dreamhouse of Herman Wallace was composed for the Los Angeles-based 'Gnarwhallaby heterophonic avant-garde quartet' (gnarwhallaby.com), whose instrumentation is based on the Cold War Polish Warsztat Muzyczny (Music Workshop), founded by composer/pianist Zygmunt Krauze, who was among my own teachers.
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