Editing LA Tapped
2011
Something strange happened when we were editing LA Tapped – the film version of our site-specific performance tap dancing at the Bonaventure Hotel. As we were deciding how we might edit the clips together, we tried different things like speeding the clips, merging them, slowing them down … This latter one, slowing down the sequences, had a very strange effect: it sounded like gun fire, bombing, shelling. It was uncanny. We decided that this would be something that we could ‘play’ with in the final edit of the film. Would it be possible to amplify this effect and, in doing so, suggest a relationship between our original performance and, well, war? (After all, there is one waging right now, lest we forget …)
It might seem like a big leap for such minute legs, but we decided to try and make it. We did so by focusing on the mediation itself. That is, rather than the film version of our site-specific performance being understood to evidence the ‘reality’ of the original performance — to document the ‘real’ event — we wanted to take this footage with all of its potential associations (Los Angeles, Hollywood, media; The Bonaventure, or ‘the good fortune’, bling, economics; tap dancing, vaudeville, fun, carefree) and layer it with another film in order to generate a complex message that could communicate our ideas.
Only one clip from this other layer is seen in the film of LA Tapped, although the sound and refrain of ‘keep shootin” echoes throughout. So, what comprises this ‘other layer’? It is, we think appropriately, The War You Don’t See by John Pilger. We highly recommend that you watch the full documentary, which can be found here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/war-you-dont-see/. And as you watch, we encourage you to bear in mind this quote from Judith Butler’s equally excellent and relevant book The Frames of War:
‘So there is no way to separate, under present historical conditions, the material reality of war from those representational regimes through which it operates and which rationalize its own operation.’ – Judith Butler, Frames of War (2009)
