9 Scripts from a Nation at War is a multi-channel video installation that responds to conditions and questions that have arisen since March 2003, taking the U.S. context as an initial point of view. While 2003 marks the beginning of the invasion of Iraq by U.S. military forces, it is a conflict that reaches backwards and forwards in history and memory, as a "long war" that has few, if any, boundaries.

Structured around the central question of how war constructs positions that one is made to fill, enact, speak from, or resist, 9 Scripts from a Nation at War considers the processes by which we are produced as certain kinds of "individuals" -- artists, soldiers, students, prisoners, detainees, citizens, Iraqis, Europeans, Americans, and so on -- in relation to war. A student or a detainee or a journalist is formed not only in relation to political and ideological conditions, but also by the agency of the individuals themselves, always struggling in response to how they are positioned.

9 Scripts from a Nation at War is presented as a constellation of videos. Each video stages the speaking of a script. The figures who speak -- a veteran, a student, a citizen, an actor, a blogger, a lawyer, a journalist, an interviewer -- are performed by actors and non-actors alike, some re-speaking their own words, others learning the words of others. These stagings allow inquiry into the recording, reporting, learning, and understanding of the present moment, and to reflect upon how we account for ourselves within it.

First shown at Documenta 12 in Kassel, 9 Scripts from a Nation at War will be presented in a new configuration specifically for the Gallery at REDCAT. The exhibition will be accompanied by public events and performances.

This exhibition is made possible in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Standard is the official hotel of REDCAT.



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