Angels in Chains

> deutsche Version

(3 video projectors / 3 round projection panels 70 cm each /
2 microfone stands, 2 speakers, amplifier -Audio Visual Laboratories Inc, Stereo Travler III, 1960s USA,
2 speakers, 3 CF-card players)


Foto: Sonja Brüggemann, 2009


Foto: Sonja Brüggemann, 2009

3-channel video installation recalling the female killer commando who, in 1969, were instructed by Charles Manson to carry out the brutal murders of seven victims, including Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski. The work was initially inspired by a press photo depicting three young women who had been involved in the Tate-LaBianca Murders. On their way to court, the three young murderers behaved like an upbeat girl band and sang a song by their leader. In the installation, they are presented in a minimal stage setting as singers – at the time of their arrest – and aged – after forty years of prison. The video projections on circular screens show the changing faces of the singers in crystal balls. These merge with the actors of the TV-series „Charlie’s Angels“ and ist remakes fort he cinema. All the characters have cameo-appearances in the stories of the other actors. They sing in lip-sync three variations of “Never Say Never To Always” by Charles Manson. In each of these stories, fame and popular myth are combined in a mass media setting with violence and crime. The installation links and overlaps one Hollywood image with another. The protagonists – only still present in society through their mediated youtube appearances – openly age, and sing as imprisoned ghosts of a media heaven.

Cast (1969/2009): (Susan Atkins): Jessica Páez / Lore Wilkening and Jaclyn Smith as ‚Kelly’, Lucy Liu as ‚Alex’. (Patricia Krenwinkel): Viktoria Bisco / Traute Hochwald and Kate Jackson as ‚Sabrina’, Drew Barrymore as ‚Dylan’ (Leslie van Houten): Isabelle Höpfner / Christine Jansen and Farrah Fawcett als ‚Jill’, Cameron Diaz as ‚Natalie’.

Crew: Concept/Director: Susanne Weirich, Camera: Jakobine Motz, Editor: Janine Dauterich, Visual Effects: Alexeji Tschernyi, Casting: Johannes Buchholz, Sascha Kölzow, Make-up: Stefanie Schädlich, Wardrobe: Wilma Renfordt, Music: Charles Manson‚ Never Say Never To Always’, Props: Silvio Naumann, Stage technology: Tobias Boner, Dirk Göken, Christian Möltner, Advice: Robert BramkampProduction: BramkampWeirich GbR with the kind support of Grant for Media Artists, Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia

 

2009 Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle
2010 Esslingen, Villa Merkel