Interactive installation / performance
Video documentation (3 min)

The Great Seal is an immersive installation that investigates the intersection between art, propaganda, religion, and politics. The piece invites viewers to step onto a fictitious stage at the annual Washington D.C. Summit of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and assume the role of keynote speaker. CUFI mobilizes millions of American Evangelical conservatives who view Jewish rule over the land of Israel/Palestine as a precondition for Christ’s Second Coming and the imminent Battle of Armageddon. By using a presidential teleprompter and a karaoke “sing-along” machine, participants are invited to perform speeches compiled from those delivered at past CUFI summits.

The work was originally shot and completed in 2015 and 2016, before the Trump presidency began. Yet it sheds light on a key constituency that helped usher in his victory and on central figures of the Trump administration; Mike Pence became the first Vice President to speak at the CUFI summit and the first VP to identify as a Christian Zionist.
 
Throughout the interactive performance, visitors stand on a rug emblazoned with the design for the original Great Seal of the United States, first proposed by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and subsequently rejected by Congress. Franklin and Jefferson’s Great Seal reimagines the biblical story of the Israelites exodus from Egypt with America framed as the “New Zion.” The myths linking the United States and Israel as two settler colonial projects are thus embodied in the seal.

The Great Seal, activated by artist/performer Reverend Billy Talen

The Great Seal  had its US premiere on November 8 at Eyebeam with an activation of the work, followed by a conversation led by experts in the areas of political activism, performance, religion, media, and neuroscience. Their voices and expertise provided a valuable perspective on the ideological, psychological, historical and political mechanisms interwoven in this project. Panelists include research scientist Suzanne Dikker, media theorist Kareem Estefan, religious studies scholar Suzanne Schneider, and artist and performer Reverend Billy Talen.