Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard
The work of Iain Forsyth (1973) and Jane Pollard (1972) consists of reconstructing artistic goings-on that combine their interest in sound and music with their impact on an audience. In 2003, with File under Sacred Music, they re-created a video tape of a mythical concert given by The Cramps, which took place in a psychiatric hospital in Napa Valley, California, in 1978. The presentation of the performance, which was given at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, was painstaking: the musicians who (re)enacted The Cramps were meticulously selected, like the singer of The Parkinsons – a punk rock group – who played the part of Lux Interior, The Cramps’ singer. The public, for its part, was made up of people undergoing psychiatric treatment, which was nothing if not controversial. The final look of the video also copied the poor quality of the original recording.