ABOUT THE BROADCAST AND THE PROJECT

Recorded on September 20th, this Prospect Art Broadcast features artist Carmen Amengual in conversation with Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, discussing Carmen’s project “Tiny Sketches for a Piece on Language and Power.” As part of her Prospect Art New Work proposal, Carmen developed this project to examine the authoritarian rhetoric used by political figures such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Javier Milei. The discussion explores how these leaders co-opt and distort language, using terms like "freedom" and "revolution" to serve their agendas, and how Carmen's work critiques this manipulation. The webcast provides insight into the artistic process behind the work and how it reflects broader themes of power, politics, and the fragility of democratic values.

Initially, *Tiny Sketches for a Piece on Language and Power* began as an artistic critique of authoritarianism, with Carmen experimenting with puppetry to explore how political leaders distort language, similar to the character Iago in Shakespeare’s *Othello.* During her creative process, Carmen tested translating political speeches into iambic pentameter using AI, but found that the archaic beauty of the language undermined her critical intent. Faced with the challenge of representing the co-opting of values and language, she broadened the scope of the project. The work evolved into a more abstract exploration of how political language, whether authoritarian or democratic, can hollow out the very principles it claims to uphold. Carmen also drew parallels between authoritarian rhetoric and the euphemistic language of liberal democracies, particularly in the context of the Gaza conflict and the Biden administration’s political messaging.

In response to these ethical and artistic challenges, Carmen shifted towards a more visual and experimental approach. Inspired by early cinema and theater techniques, she incorporated shadow play, stop-motion animation, and black light theater into the project. These sketches, developed during her residency at AUTOMATA in Los Angeles, experiment with analog illusionist strategies to critique the digital age. The masks featured in the work raise questions about the emptiness of human values in contemporary politics, and Carmen sees the project as an ongoing exploration of how language, power, and technology shape our current reality. Though the project remains in progress, *Tiny Sketches for a Piece on Language and Power* encapsulates many of Carmen’s key concerns, positioning it as a seed for further artistic inquiry.