BY THE CROWD THEY HAVE BEEN BROKEN; BY THE CROWD THEY SHALL BE HEALED
Fifteen animated video clips, 2009
RT: approximately 1:33 each
Posted on Facebook in weekly installments
In 2009 Silton developed a series of animated videos specifically for, and posted on, Facebook. Using Sitepal, at that time still a relatively new online platform for commercial avatar creation, the artist created male “avatars” for fifteen segments, each titled by only a first name. Ambivalent about jumping into social media (Silton joined FB in 2008), and about the increasingly blurred distinction between public and private space, the artist inhabited the discourse of public apology—itself an anomalous blend of public and private. In each segment, a different animated male avatar bears a likeness to a contemporary or historic public figure and speaks his public apology through the artist’s recorded voice. In some cases, Silton abbreviated the texts, but in all cases the apologies were those actually delivered in public by the apologist. Silton has incorporated the project into other works, such as in her performative lecture about voice, She Had a Laugh Like a Beefsteak.