Snoring in the USA

Kristina Leko and David Smithson, 2003-2011
ca 840’ DV/VHS
14-channel video installation expanded with wall drawings, floor prints, reading room, and a series of photoprints (edition 3 + 2)
English
BBK Vlissingen, July/August 2008
Art Pavilion Zagreb, April/June 2010
NGBK Berlin, March/April 2011

The work was shown as a solo exhibition in the Zagreb Art Pavilion in 2010 and at the NGBK Berlin in 2011.




Snoring in the U.S.A. is a poetic and ironic work, subtle in its critical approach. It is a visual essay exploring clichés from America, a multi-channel "road movie" shot from the passenger seat, showing some of the most important and globally well-known locations from the film history, i.e., from wild westerns and road movies (The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, the Las Vegas strip, etc.), but also small towns, fast food restaurants, gas stations, drive in cemeteries, etc. However, the beautiful images of fascinating landscapes prevail (7 video-channels, 7 days), and they are alternated, juxtaposed with static black and white moving images of a couple sleeping and snoring in different hotel rooms (7 nights, 7 video-channels).



Filmed in 2003, this experimental documentary also records an important historical moment, the invasion of Iraq and the war against terrorism, by documenting bits and pieces of radio news while driving through magnificent landscapes (the news mainly reports on the activities of President G.W. Bush) or TV programs while zapping in hotel rooms (an interview with Noam Chomsky on socialism, reports on anti-war demonstrations).














Photo credits: Installation views NGBK Berlin – Nihad Nino Pušija; installation views Art Pavilion Zagreb – Marko Ercegović

Set-up options: There are several possibilities for adapting the work for different spatial situations, as the installation can be presented with video projections or monitors. Optionally, the installation is expanded to include a reading room. In any case, the multiplying sound of snoring (7 different soundtracks with snoring) dominates the exhibition space. It adds an ironic distance to the daytime recordings: the images of landscapes and everyday life in the USA. On the other hand, these moving images have a hypnotic character in their constant change, but also in their continuity, and driving-by monotony. What strikes the audience here is the feeling that there is nothing to see, that everything they are seeing, they have already seen before, and that, despite all that, it is still interesting and inviting. Then, one starts asking themself: Why is it so?

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