Spectrum of Inevitable Violence (2010)
'Spectrum of Inevitable Violence' is a class warfare food fight first developed for 'Experience Economies,' a series co-curated by Gavin Kroeber and Rebecca Uchill. Participants took a detailed survey that tallied their score in four areas: Socioeconomic Status, Cultural Capital, Class Status and Cultural Mobility. They mapped their scores with colored tape along four axes on the floor. These misshapen trapezoids served as their “territories” for the food fight, which was accompanied by a live, 9-person marching band.
Spectrum of Inevitable Violence is about unresolved and elusive forces in cultural and spatial politics. The surveying, mapping, and catharsis of class dynamics come together in this participatory work. The survey is designed to offer new ways of looking at class structures, one's self, one's position, other people, and one's assumptions about cultural audiences. It is also designed to feel constrictive at times, with arbitrary lacuna that may or may not sufficiently represent an individual's life experience.
Emotions of anxiety, misrepresentation and the inadequacy of language elicited by the survey are channeled into a battle. The battle provides an outlet for all these tensions that lie below the surface of language, and for the failure of survey and analysis. Yet the battle is auto-destructing. The enemy lines are mangled and indecipherable. The inadequacy of language explodes into a spectacularly meaningless mess.
Factory Seconds Marching Band, Gavin Kroeber, Rebecca Uchill, MEME Gallery, John Hulsey, Audubon Dougherty, Dirk Adams, and others!
Photos by David DiMaria & Caitlin Berrigan.
Participants took a detailed survey analyzing their background and lifestyle.
The Standard List from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stretched 40 feet in the gallery
Participants took a detailed survey analyzing their background and lifestyle.
Participants mapped their scores in four areas: Socioeconomic Status, Cultural Capital, Class Status and Cultural Mobility. The misshapen trapezoids were marked in colored tape along 4-axes on the floor, which then became the “territories” they had to defend.
Bags of food pre-flight
The live band, Factory Seconds, reveals itself after the fight is over
The aftermath
Remains were left on view for days after the battle
