Document:Q11675

Ber.loose.coin - Electoral Drum Machine.
Ruben Coen Cagli, Stefano Perna.
It is evident - as shown by the italian political campaign in 2006 - that contemporary videopolitic strategies rest upon the circulation of meaningless patterns, audiovisual cells governed by the rules of rhythm, repetition, pulsation, where the permanence of elements that still signify appears as superfluous. What matters is the ability of the media object (e.g. the speech of a leader) to graft to the social psychic fabric through the process of tuning. The meaningless fragment, thus, is able to duplicate itself and transfer its working schemes, namely to tune on itself the senses and percepts of the videolisteners. What was said is really of no importance.
The ber.loose.coin project presents a prototype device for the optimization of such a mechanism, trying to facilitate politicians' life. It removes the burden of contents, still used just as a makeup tool for the speech, and preserves the molecules of rhythm, vision and sound, thus constituting a sort of drum machine for electoral speeches.
The choice of Silvio Berlusconi (the former prime minister of Italy, who was in charge at the time ber.loose.coin was realized) as the experimental material is almost incidental, apart for the fact that he seemed to us the person that is closest to this kind of political practice.