One is dead

Alessandro Sambini

One is Dead is a public art project, commissioned in 2011 by the Museo della Fotografia Contemporanea di Cinisello Balsamo. The spectators were invited to the screening of a new TV game show: Replay! where two families, one against the other, were trying to replicate a video. The theme of that episode was executions of great dictators and the two videos that the families had to re-make were the execution of Saddam Hussein and the execution of Muammar Gaddafi. The presenter of that evening was Uan, a puppet created by Silvio Berlusconi in the 80s. It was well known among children, because he was the presenter of a famous afternoon TV show called Bim Bum Bam.

While viewers were watching Replay! Uan had a heart attack because he ate an ice cream that Alice, the other presenter, gave him. He was not supposed to eat it though as the doctor said explicitly that his health was not enough strong. After he fainted, the lights were switched on and some paramedics entered the room to try to revive him. The live projection of Replay! was abruptly interrupted and the staff of the Italian Red Cross took Uan away. The audience was informed that Uan felt sick and that the show was over. Everyone left the cinema.

The story of this project culminating with this performance remains in the word of mouth. One is Dead is an experiment on the affection towards people portrayed in TV images whose death has been recorded by amateur means and subsequently broadcasted all over the world. How do we experience these losses? Moreover, this project is an initial approach to research on copying: why do people copy the videos they see on TV? Why do they want to star in the remakes of these videos? Starring in a remake is not the only need, they also need to reproduce the same camera movements, the same scenography: how do the original video and the copy relate to each other?

A journalist asks the staff of the Italian Red Cross what happened that night