Blind America

Blind America

In this piece I perform by playing a series of modified vinyl records while blindfolded. The idea behind this piece, as I state later in the video, is to depict the blind ignorance of American life and the idea of "stumbling blind" through the expectations of American idealistic life. This is represented not only by my blindfolding, but also by the records chosen. All records created for this piece are either Christian in nature, or were obtained from a series of records entitled "Happiness"; all of which have what can be considered "American Classics". Each record on its own has a separate meaning as well, which is explained below:

Record 1:

This record was spliced and put back together with itself, out of order and rather crudely. This represents the idea that our American ideals in the United States have been warped and twisted and are falling apart, with only a feeble weak backbone holding it together in our modern day.

Record 2:

This record, on the other hand, has a somewhat more hopeful representation. The silver star on the top side forces the record to skip, while the clean side would play normally. This is meant to represent the fact that we have a toss up chance of either repeating our past histories or progressively moving forward and ignoring this ideals that have been so long forced onto our society.

Record 3 & 4:

For these two records, the appearance from a distance seems normal and undamaged. However, when taking a closer look you notice that there are imperfections. This is a representation of these ideals themselves and the idea that we see them as perfect (people, ways of living, wealth, etc.) despite the fact that when you study them closer, they are far from perfection.

Record 5:

This record is more so a commentary against the most common, "ideal", religion in the United States. On one side you have a cross drawn, a common Christian symbol that represents, in the most simple terms, good when right side up and bad when upside down. When on a record player this common symbol spins between stereotypically "good" imagery and "bad" imagery. This is meant to represent the pick and choose hypocracy that I, and many others, have experienced from this common American religion. The other side is left blank to show that there is, once again, a toss up chance of avoiding this hypocracy and inequality in America, allowing for religious freedom and understanding across the board. I felt as though it was important to touch on religion as well because many of the ideals the United States possesses stem from being so heavily saturated in Christianity for years.

The performance: