Raging Balls is a poetic video rant, written by Ashery, and inspired by the artist David Wojnarowicz's (1954 – 1992) potent diatribes against the American government’s mishandlings of the AIDS crisis during the 1980s. Years on, Ashery finds it hard to access this kind of raw anger, but instead explores her own version. The first part of the speech is about increased state control in the recalling of a police ‘Stop and Search’ scenario, particularly in relation to the new laws on terrorism. The second part is a schizophrenic protest, for and against, the proliferation and commodification of interest in art from the Middle East and other non-western regions since September 11th. It points a finger at the current state of political art or art’s use of politics in a post-capitalist world. In the video, the reader’s dispassionate overlaid voices go in and out of lip-syncing, thus emulating sensations akin to disassociation. The reading effect oscillates between the recalling of traumas in the first part, and later attempts to catch up with the rhetoric of art language in the second. The motto expressed in Raging Balls is that art is not going to protect you.

Performer in the video: Chris McCormack