MLK by A Donald Harding  

One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man. John Berger

MLK 
Political speeches have an intellectual and emotional capacity to inspire action. Leaders crystallise the demands of a movement with their oration, inspiring their followers to act. Is it the musicality in the voice of the orator that gives political speech its emotional force? Can certain elements be isolated, the meaning from the music, the voice from the politics?A Donald Harding trans-codes Martin Luther King’s famous speech and renders it into a piece of music. The audio of the speech is processed into a musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) file and then this trans-coded data is arranged into a musical score played by eight stringed instruments from violin to double bass.Stripped of its literal sense, the oration of the civil rights leader becomes an aural abstraction of the original and the viewer is compelled to find new meaning in his words and in the film of the event itself. (source)

A Donald Harding  UK   MLK   5mins 20s 2010 will be shown as part of   Disingenuous Realities, Fri, 18th 10:30pm