Songs for Psychos, 2007
two channel video, color, stereo sound.
27:58 minutes, continuous loop.
Songs for Psychos highlights the song in cinema as a deranged muse, restoring the song’s original duration and reversing the cutting process. In this scheme, the film is excerpted and placed back within the full song.
Beginning with live performances that accompanied early silent films, music has been used to manipulate viewer’s reactions to a scene, character, or place. Sound within the narrative (diegetic sound), and specifically songs that a character is listening to, are often employed to characterize a psychotic person’s predilection, i.e. intellectual serial killers being inspired by Bach or maniacal visionaries playing Caruso on the Amazon.
Songs for Psychos focuses on the relationship of music and persona, at the point of convergence where the music the character enjoys in the film says as much about them as their words, costume, or the space they inhabit.
In this instance the viewer is coerced to remain active while listening and imagining what may arrive on the screen.
