Bottled Songs 4: The Spokesman

The Bottled Songs of Lost Children is a series of four video letters investigating desire, power, propaganda, and terrorism in online and social media. The artists compose letters addressed to each other, narrating their encounters with videos originating from the terrorist group the Islamic State (ISIS). They use a desktop documentary approach to trace and record their investigations playing directly upon their computer screens. These “desktop epistolaries,” recorded from the artist-researchers' computers, depict their experiences navigating through an unstable virtual environment of fear and attraction. The epistolaries examine a range of themes connected to ISIS media: specific videos produced by ISIS; spectral figures who appear in the videos; and viewers of the videos with a diverse range of motivations and interests. These video letters function in a variety of forms: a multi-part episodic series, multiple two-channel installations, a four-channel installation, a feature-length film, and audiovisual performance lectures.

The four chapters are:

• Bottled Songs 1: The Observer
• Bottled Songs 2: Looking Into the Flames
• Bottled Songs 3: My Crush Was A Superstar
• Bottled Songs 4: The Spokesman

In Bottled Songs 4: The Spokesman Kevin investigates the online traces of a British news reporter who was kidnapped and appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos.

Please note: Not recommended for children and adolescents.

This work was realised within the framework of the European Media Art Platforms (EMAP) programme at m-cult (FI) with support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union.