Ideology as material force: An exploration into the compositional process and influences

This paper details the compositional process of the multimedia performance Ideology as Material Force. It consists of an examination into the theoretical and practical considerations of developing the work, along with an in-depth exploration of its influences. Ideology as Material Force is an ongoing series of live video performances referencing concepts from Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism, and derived from a system of hacked Laserdisc video players. Layers of video interfere in a similar fashion to how Reich describes the layers of the human psyche---distortions and cross channel/cross sensory interference occur as multiple audio and visual signals compete. This competition forms the aesthetic core of the work; the interaction between the competing ideologies and aesthetics represented on each disc forms the aesthetic output. The performance recontextualizes each playback medium as an element of a performable instrument and reverses the expected relationship of signal and noise through the process of communicating noise unique to the media used.