Perry Bard

I live in Tribeca just south of Canal Street where on a normal day crossing Canal is a risk. Since co-vid the street has been the path of protesters crossing the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan leaving a trail of broken glass from storefronts.here are helicopters overhead, sirens 24/7 and distressing news reports daily. How does one focus at a time like this?

In addition to the chaos life has turned digital. Zoom meetings to end a semester, zoom graduations, zoom meetings with friends, Zoom performances in galleries.Stay tethered folks, this is it….

Looking at our 10 foot long 8 foot high bookshelf I decided to write down the first line of every book on the shelves in the order in which they appear, no shuffling.

It’s akin to knitting which I’ve never done-repetitive labour no thinking necessary and surprising juxtapositions.

NO FLAK, 2017, Video. 7’14. Dimensions variable. Color, Sound.

NO FLAK is a text animation that links the attitudes of Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd to the present moment. In the aftermath of an election where the internet offers the opportunity for rants on social media and absurd tweets from the U.S. president, the work scours past and present for bits of humor and philosophy. Pulling text from George Orwell's 1984, Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, Jonathan Crary's Capitalism and the End of Sleep, Elena Gorokhova's Mountain of Crumbs, and a media glossary the video is a response to current politics in the U.S .

Written, directed, edited, produced by Perry Bard and Richard Sullivan