Diana Woolner ~ Lip Service
composer: Diana Woolner
artist: Jimena Sarno
conductor: Alexandra Grabarchuk
choir: Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles (C3LA)
recorded on November 4th, 2017 at Angels Gate Cultural Center by Umberto Belfiore.
"from sea to shining sea" (FSTSS) is a sculpture, video and sound installation that takes a site-specific choir performance as a departure point. On September 9th, 2017 C3LA performed at White Point Military Reservation, within a decommissioned long range naval gun casemate where guns were never fired for their intended purpose. The final installation will move into Angels Gate Cultural Center, reconstructing the spatial and theatrical context of the live performance piece as a sculpture, video and sound installation.
Borrowing its title from the last line of the song “America the Beautiful”, the project utilizes declassified logistics data from White Point Military Reservation as parameters to deconstruct and rearrange the song. Through the process of breaking down language by isolating and reorganizing the musical and linguistic components of “America the Beautiful”, the piece reconsiders the song’s history, as well as its poetic, benevolent, and hopeful narrative.
The project responds to San Pedro’s militarization process as a coastal city and the historical significance of the site. With a rich history of immigrant populations, San Pedro’s history also aligns with WWII notions of national security, as they still relate today to patriotism and xenophobia. FSTSS connects the history of this militarized, man-made landscape to the normalization of the U.S.’s exceptionalism to legitimize military interventions worldwide, and its ambivalent relationship to the displacement of immigrants and refugees, often a direct result of such interventions. FSTSS repurposes a site of military destruction, reclaiming the space through a collective audio-visual experience.