Omer Fast, CNN Concatenated, 2002

Installation view

Single channel video
Color, sound
18’

CNN Concatenated is a speech –part-harangue part-plea– composed for one voice but constructed entirely from single words spoken by news presenters of the cable news network.
The monologue is pulled from a ten-thousand-word database of clips which could suffice for an endless permutation of thoughts and distinct sentences.
However, the speech that results reflects a decidedly personal – albeit somewhat unstable – need for attention. If there is a speaking subject behind the monologue it is a voice that attempts to fill-in what the news stream fails to relieve and even exploits: more than the need to know and understand, but rather the need to see and to witness.
To have a memory.
To have community.
To have intimacy.
To act.
To escape.
To have silence and rest.
To have language.

Omer Fast, CNN Concatenated, 2002

Exhibition view, Present Continuous, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2016

Single channel video
Color, sound
18’

CNN Concatenated is a speech –part-harangue part-plea– composed for one voice but constructed entirely from single words spoken by news presenters of the cable news network.
The monologue is pulled from a ten-thousand-word database of clips which could suffice for an endless permutation of thoughts and distinct sentences.
However, the speech that results reflects a decidedly personal – albeit somewhat unstable – need for attention. If there is a speaking subject behind the monologue it is a voice that attempts to fill-in what the news stream fails to relieve and even exploits: more than the need to know and understand, but rather the need to see and to witness.
To have a memory.
To have community.
To have intimacy.
To act.
To escape.
To have silence and rest.
To have language.