Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
Phyllis Baldino Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr two-channel video installation
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
2006
two-channel video installation
Commission: De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, United Kingdom

David A. Bailey was the curator of the exhibition Voodoo Macbeth, inspired by Orson Welles’s version of Macbeth performed in Harlem in 1936. David’s request: to create a video installation using the original War of the Worlds audio.



(Permission to use excerpts from the radio play War of the Worlds by Howard Koch, first performed by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air on October 30, 1938, and broadcast across the USA on the radio network of the Columbia Broadcasting System, is kindly granted by Anne Koch.)

Phyllis Baldino Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr color/sound
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
2006
color/sound
left channel: 14:22:08 minutes

On April 8th, 2006, there was a protest at the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. It was the eve of their election. Filmed above the crowd at sunset, with balloons floating through the air, this scene resembles planets in orbit. After the sun sets I briefly pan down to the crowd and then back up again. The video then plays backwards as the sun rises and the Italian audio plays backwards as well. The footage plays back and forth like this throughout the installation. The sunset is in real time and the sunrise is the sunset backwards.
Phyllis Baldino Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr black and white/sound
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
2006
black and white/sound
right channel: 9:24:23 minutes

On the eve of the Republican National Convention here in New York on August 29, 2004, there was a protest march of about 500,000 people. I filmed during this event as well as the protest against the Iraq war on April 29, 2006. Using excerpts from my footage along with excerpts from the original 1938 radio recording of the War of the Worlds, this black and white footage deals with the invasion of the Republicans and the invasion of the protesters. As Welles and Koch purposely aired the War of the Worlds on mischief night, the eve of Halloween, there are similar correlations with due respect to the original broadcast.
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
2006
color/sound
left channel: 14:22:08 minutes

(excerpt)
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
2006
black and white/sound
right channel: 9:24:23 minutes

(excerpt)
Mars/Rome/NY De La Warr
Installation video documentation
(excerpt)