Video

The Tower Trilogy: Enter The Ministry (remastered), The Tower, The Adversary

Tasman Richardson

2002, colour

TAPECODE 575.20

In 1996 I began a trilogy in which a visual syntax could be developed over a series of iterations, each being more definitive than the last. A trilogy in which viewers would be forced to re-examine the same sampled vignettes in varying orders with varying tempos in order to familiarize them with the recurring associations. Mythologically, the curse of language has always been that which was once ordered and unifying, then torn asunder by a wrathful god. The resultant free associations and misinterpretations led to confusion, contempt and catastrophy.

The remix being appropriate to this for the same reason that it is a reinterpretation of an original gesture. With each iteration comes a refined phrasing of the visual statement, an aural/visual record that through multiplicity and alteration becomes clearer and more succinct, rather than obscured over time like so many other histories.

1. Enter The Ministry (remastered), 1999, 1:02: A blazing call to arms, the command to release the fiend, the rising anticipation of inevitable strife and death.

2. The Tower, 2002, 4:15: Extended remix of Enter the Ministry. A romantic interpretation of the flaming death of youth and beauty under an uncaring omni-gaze.

3. The Adversary, 2002, 1:30: The third and final remix in "The Tower Trilogy" reorders the pre-established language of vengeance and failure to resonate with a new call to arms. Glorious praise for fanatical passion and the endless, unquenchable conflict perpetuated by adversarial polarities unified by their blind hate.

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