S*H*A*M

S*H*A*M
HD Video. 2 minutes 57 seconds

S*H*A*M is the anagrammatic configuration of M*A*S*H, the long-running and popular American television series, based on the Richard Hooker novel MASH and the 1970 film of the same name, that premiered in 1972 and ran 251 episodes in 11 seasons. The show followed a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Uijeongbu, Korea during the Korean War. As American viewers watched the film safely from televsions at home, its soldiers were fighting a prolonged and frustrating war abroad in Vietnam. Some have argued that the show was an allegory to the mounting reservations and disillusionment the American public had towards the ongoing war.

It is through this allegory that this work in progress is following. I will be using the show's title sequence featuring its theme song, "Suicide is Painless" and reconfiguring it to a set of new images, some now iconic and others made specifically for the work, connecting America's violent engagements in Korea and Vietnam then to its policies now, both with Korea and Vietnam and the current targets of the War Machine.

S*H*A*M: The word sham has mulitple meanings including a term to describe a person or situation that is false. As a colloquialism, it also refers to a person of perceived toughness. Both terms apply to America's war agressions in Korea and Vietnam and are more appropriate than M*A*S*H, which aims to save rather than take lives.

The work was shown in the group show, Xin Chao! My Darling at the Stone and Water Supplemental Space

DETAILS

2006

Stone and Water Supplemental Space
Anyang, Korea
Xin Chao! My Darling
Korea Vietnam Pace on Peace Project
Oct 17 - 31, 2006

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