Evil.8: Unseen

2004, 7:54 min, color, sound

Evil.8 presents a word-for-word transcription of a 2004 New York Times editorial discussing the notorious Abu Ghraib prison images, and the actions and tactics of the Bush administration before and after these images were made public. This animated text, rendered in "patriotic" colors, is set to a pop song decrying the Defense Department's image control policies. Cokes writes: "In retrospect, the torture photographs could be considered 'the return of the repressed' of... earlier, other, largely unseen images. However, even those powerful images of humiliation and torture (and the flawed judgment and policies that permitted their production) were apparently forgotten by a majority of American voters less than six months later at the time of the U.S. presidential elections."

Music: Alias. Lyric/Vocals: Markus Acher.