The Center Cannot Hold
The Center Cannot Hold is a live cinema performance challenging the zones of discourse on globalization, media saturation, and corporatization.
The project used William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, as a backbone, the remaining elements composed and scored in a figurative, semi-structured flow featuring techniques of improv, montage, cut-up, collage and parataxis.
The performance was created and performed by Seth Carnes, Gary Breslin and Daniel Perlin, using an array of digital equipment that allowed for the real-time editing and remixing of scenes, sounds and samples.
A wide array of media works were donated to the project by artists listed below. Please feel free to scrub anywhere in the video, it’s a linear+nonlinear affair.
TCCH was performed three times:
October 23, 2004 | 9th Annual La Paz y La Guerra [Peace and War] Festival | Madrid
A few days later | The Tank | New York City
July 19, 2005 | Pirineos Sur World Music and Arts Festival | Pyrenees Mountains | Spain
Key components of the project include:
The Second Coming
poem by William Butler Yeats
performed by Meghan TrainorThe Pledge to Resist
by Saul WilliamsHarmon
by Sharif Ezzat“What Barry Says”
by Simon RobsonPropagate : Experimental Trailer
by [sic] and Shepard FaireySatellite Control and Csoda Pøk
by PanOptic911: State of Emergence
by [sic], Billy Blaze and DJ SpookyLetter to the President
by the BarnstormersMLK
by Sharif Ezzat
Gary Breslin, Daniel Perlin, Yolanda from La Fabrica de Ideas, Saul Williams, Paul Miller, Sharif Ezzat, David Ellis, Kiku Yamaguchi, Meghan Trainor, Simon Robson, Gauri Khindaria, Happy Corp, D-Fuse, Tamas Banovich, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), The Tank