A D R I A N   W O O D

This is a sound installation I created to augment a physical installation by the Institute for Improvisational Infrastructures (Conrad Cheung) for the show The Threat The                 at Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia in September 2024.

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The audio is a speech I collaged from fragments of past authoritarian responses to police violence in the US since 1965. Sources for the collage fragments include public addresses by William Barr, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, George H. W. Bush, Eugene McCain, Richard M. Daley, Ron Johnson, Daniel Linskey, Tim Longo, Ed Koch, Jay Nixon, Jim Ryan, Paul Schell, and Tim Walz. The voice is an AI composite of the voices of several of the above listed. 

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The location of this work is a short walk from the former site of the University of Virginia’s student encampment for Gaza, which was destroyed by a SWAT team deployed by then-President James Ryan only weeks before this installation was built.

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This audio played on a 24-hour loop. 

The total length of the composition is 15:18.

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All sculptural and architectural design and construction by Conrad Cheung/Institute for Improvisational Infrastructures. 

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Materials: existing architecture, plastic boxwood, pine, spruce, acrylic sheets, concrete, rubberized stucco, latex paint, found and altered steel cage from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found steel clamp from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found slag from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found bricks from the Western State Lunatic Asylum, found and altered military cargo nets, CCTV camera system, PA speaker with monologue read by modified AI voice clone, solar panels, cabling, hardware