Excerpt 1: Chandelier and Potted Palm

It was clear to me rather early that if people say, ‘We are the people,’ then that turns very quickly into ‘We are one people,’ and that turns just as quickly into: ‘You shall have no other peoples before me.’ And then I came to understand very well why Brecht was so distrustful of the word ‘people’ [Volk]. - Heiner Muller

What consolidates an audience into a mob? What triggers an ordinary theatergoer to commit violent censure? Artists throughout history have faced down, fled from and been destroyed by hostile audiences. Muller remarked that if he wrote a scene that mocked the GDR, he wrote it for the terrible silence where there should have been laughter. Today, and especially as American artists, the thought that our artwork sparks such a dramatic reaction is dulled by our nation’s proclivity to repackage subversion as one more marketing strategy. We argue that the silencing mob still thrives under all our skins. As artists, we have the opportunity to use this negativity to our advantage, as a useful symbol.