Milan Kohout, Feed Me (First Amendment). Boston Harbor, USA, 2002

performance as part of an international art exchange program between Mobius and artists from Zadar, Croatia, May 2002.
Performance: Milan Kohout
Video: Bob Raymond and Jed Speare
This performance was in reaction to the nationalist obsession after 9/11.
In Kohout’s words:
“A long (seemingly endless) strip of American flags ran from the handrails of a bridge directly to my mouth. While my mouth was stuffed full to the maximum by the other end of this colorful fabric, I gave a lecture about freedom of speech and its irreplaceable importance in the healthy life of a democratic society under any circumstances. I used a powerful speaker and a hidden wireless microphone, but my voice was distorted by the fabric stuffed in my mouth to such a degree that passers-by on the bridge could only hear me mumbling. As an accompanying audio track I used an endless repetition of a sampled announcement of Coordinated Universal Time— a reminder that nothing lasts forever.”