Andrea Lange

Continual Shooting with Cannon 

Audio & video installation, 7 min 30 sec, 1999/2000. Soundmix: Helge Sten / Andrea Lange

Continual Shooting with Cannon features Moroccan-born Samir Tasaft and Karim Bounbaa singing the French children’s song Frère Jacques in cannon, in their new country of residence – France. During the course of the film, small but dramatic shifts take place: The order of the song – the cannon – breaks down and gradually changes character.

Today, four famous pilgrimage routes cross France on their way to Santiago de Compostella. The route from Toulouse passes through Samir and Karim’s hometown, Saint-Gaudens, where Continual Shooting with Cannon was first shown in Chapelle Saint-Jacques, a former church, now exhibition space.

Jacques, the refered figure, was canonised to sainthood in the eighth century, when the Christians and Moors fought for supremacy over Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Dressed in magnificent knight's garments, Saint Jacques made a fierce attack against the Moors. This made him patron saint of the battle against the heretics, and is the origin of his nickname "Matamoros" (Moor Murderer).

– By citing the song Frére Jacques, Lange makes reference to the site of the project — the church — but also the role of the church in its disguise as benevolent paternalism in respect of the imperial submergence of colonial identity. The eventual violence of the cacophony of sound is surely Lange's own way of suggesting — as the song does — that the easy sleep of the old order must be awoken by new voices making new noise. –

From "Dormez-vous, dormez-vous?" by Juliana Engberg, catalogue text for ”Continual Shooting with Cannon”. Read full text

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The Tempest