The Special Attention performance lecture comments critically on the arrogance of those in power, the destructive disintegration of society wreaked by capitalist ‘ethics’, and the desperation of poverty (– as well as having a dig at royalty!)

The title Special Attention comes from the words on a rubber stamp I found among the debris in the abandoned police station, and it deals with dilemmas surrounding the making of art in urgent circumstances. Despite the grim content, the work has a certain humour, a macabre absurdity that can have the effect of bringing the line between reality and fiction into doubt – a borderline doubt that is important to the work.
Along with the images of the abandoned police station in Detroit and texts from my diary (see The Detroit Diary) in Books, Special Attention combines short videos of homeless African American Barbara ranting against Bush and telling her version of the story of Adam & Eve; clips from Death Wish 3; and the story and pictures of ‘The Royal Drag’, about my wedding in New York on the same day as Prince Charles and Lady Diana, but with me dressed as Charles and him, in the bride’s dress, as Di…