AMERICAN ANTHEM, FEATURING TRIGGERS SOUND PIECE

 American Anthem, 2004, featuring Triggers sound piece, latex paint, vinyl, speakers and sound

Triggers, 2004, 6-minute loop, broadcast sound via lofted speakers.

Triggers is a 6-minute looping sound piece, which builds in the number of voices over the course of the 6-minutes.  It’s designed to be broadcast over lofted speakers in an enclosed interior space.  It was originally screened as part of the American Anthem installation, which included 5 walls each painted in a different solid color of latex house paint, with vinyl footer text that came together to read as a revolving poem.

Triggers is the collection and reorganization of over 250 environmental, dietary and emotional migraine triggers into small poetic stanzas. The arrangement, with questionable juxtapositions of desirable and undesirable foods and situations, challenges what we perceive as safe territory.  The compilation contains so many triggers, it would be difficult to avoid them all and still manage to live.  Similarly it would be difficult to pinpoint personal problem areas with any precision. While migraine is a specialized affliction, it is one in a sea of commonplace chronic illnesses such as autoimmune diseases, IBS, GERD, SIBO and more.  All of which speak to a cultural lack of time in contemporary capitalist life to relax, eat properly and experience emotions fully.