Greg Allen highlights the Bush White House's "Szforzian Baroque" period, a term that refers to Scott Sforza, the brainchild of Bush's on-message stage backdrops. Greg describes the site of Bush's latest campaign-style town hall meeting:Here, the classic "Sforzian Backdrop" gives way to a more spatially complex theater-in-the-round composition, complete with white picket fences, white white people [oops], and on-message Astroturf [oops again].But the best part of his post is the hilarious similarity between Bush's faux-idyllic picket-fence getup and Saddam's courthouse paddock.
But wait, there IS a Backdrop, a pop-out house, complete with shingles and clapboard siding. [and on-message banner, of course]. I'd be interested to see if WH Prod. built the house, or if it was pre-existing, and thus served as a source for the WHP design.
Earlier: Fool with a fool is Sforzarrific!(Via Modern Art Notes.)
4 comments:
But what's interesting about this is that he has deliberately chosen to build a fence between himself and the people (even that small proportion of the people that passes the Bush test to be allowed into these events).
Whether Bush chooses to see himself as fenced in or alternatively living in a gated community, I'm not sure, but he has definitely erected a barrier here.
The Astroturf is just silly.
What strikes me is: When you draw a line from the center of the stage to the pole on the right of each entry to the stage (seen from inside), you get, together with the fences, a geometrical shape which looks roughly like - a swastika.
Coincidence? I know that this is probably pure incidence, but still I think that this is interesting.
M. (reading too much about conspiracy theories recently)
"reading too much about conspiracy theories recently"
Could be geometrical theories, in fact...
Actually it looks to me as though Bush is taking a cue from Elvis Preseley here, specifically the comeback '68 television show where the King sat in a sort of boxing-ring enclosure surrounded by fans and played old hits. It worked for Elvis: the intimate feel partially redeemed years of irrelevance and beach movies, and he could afford to coast his way into the fat years. But Bush comes off like an animatronic exhibit at Disneyland. As you observe, he appears cornered and "in the dock," as it were. And there was no Vegas for Nixon....
--Herr K.
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