Praxis Films
Film by Praxis Films
When I first saw the film, I was weary of what the message was trying to portray, but I also felt very confused on the statement they were trying to make. They mentioned the atrocities that the tear gas grenades by Warren Kanders, vice chair of the board of trustees of the Whitney Museum, but they also mentioned that they were trying to figure out the real tear gas grenades in photos, and only found a couple of images that had the actual tear-gas grenade. When I watched the film, I was overcome with horror and and sadness when I was watching clips of people who were victims to the tear-gassing. It was not the film that initially caught my attention, it was the statement before you entered the room that caught me by surprise. I was not expecting art that rebelled against Mr. Kanders, someone in an important position in the art world. After watching the film for the second time, I was engrossed with the way technology was able to decipher “fake” images from the real ones. I watched carefully how they used computer and 3D animation to help encode the shape of the tear-gas and the different names from the company, Safariland. The artwork was about trying to identify the real images of the tear-gas, so when the tear-gas is used on civilians, we would immediately know the information. This film relates to my letter P, Protest, from my Abecedarian. By having this work up at the Whitney Museum is a form of protest in itself, alerting people of the shady business behind the modern design of the museum, and hoping that people would consider giving their money to the Whitney.
