Kojak/Wang

Layered with a tension-laden crescendo of rock guitars and gunshots, Kojak/Wang is a volatile pastiche of fast-paced, repeated images from Kojak (commercial TV), an ad for the Wang Corporation (TV commercial), and color bars. Birnbaum equates the violence of the crime drama shoot-out and the violence of corporate America, as signified by the telecommunications industry. Images and music burst in a staccato rhythm as she cuts back and forth between rapid gunfire, Kojak interrogating a criminal, candy-colored lasers and a woman at a computer. Within the ritualized violence of Kojak's gunfire and Wang's lasers, a condensed narrative dialogue between cop and criminal is articulated in shot/counter-shot images: "No! No! Listen ... I did wrong. I'll take the blame for that. But don't ask me to give you his name." "I'm asking."

Instrumentation: Rhys Chatham.