Ready First
clip
2009 Marilyn Volkman,
Video Projection, TRT 35min
Ready
Firstis a video produced in 2003-2004 by the Ready First Combat Team
in memory of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was first screened at
Ray Barracks, a US Army military installation in Friedberg, Germany
upon the unit's return from Baghdad in 2004. It has subsequently
been appropriated and viewed as an art installation.
Ready First comes from a world in which the absolute realization of
results from intentions is essential, and where the actual legitimacy
in the origins of intentions is essentially unquestioned. Despite
this disconnect, a desire for legitimization
persists. In the case of Ready First, this desire is addressed by
packaging and documenting selected experience in digital form.
Using PowerPoint as its medium, Ready First neatly bundles images of
heroes, helpers and landscapes by stringing them together with star
swipes, page peels, checkerboard transitions, fades and dissolves, all
set to a top 40's pop music soundtrack.
The video originally served as a memorial to the troops' time in Iraq,
and was screened in a gymnasium filled with military members and
families within 24 hours of the troops return. In its
appropriation and recontextualization, it becomes difficult for the
video to realize this purpose.
