TRUMP VIRALS: VIC BERGER (MEDIA JAMMER)

Researching around the concept of virals I discovered the work of Vic Berger. What Berger does is repurposes and re-edits existing footage of politicians and celebrities, zeroing in on and amplifying all the awkward pauses and tells in split-second facial tics, sideways glances, and involuntary gestures (such as Trump’s habitual shifting of objects away from him). In so doing, he seems to reveal the truth about the psychological makeup of the personalities behind the carefully crafted public personas. Then he overdubs canned music and cartoonish sound effects – airhorns, drum rolls, explosions – that make the whole experience even more surreal.

I really liked his work for all of its bells and whistles at its core is a simple parody of awkward moments, ill conceived actions and sound-bites. He is simply taking the situations that arise from these and through editing amplify and put them under a spotlight. He is a cultural jammer in the vein of Craig Baldwin but the internet is his exhibition space.

American Horror Story: Meliana says hello to a more Presidential Trump is an excellent example of his work. A month after his inauguration, Donald Trump he was to address a joint session of Congress for the first time, in a live TV broadcast, and his chance to sidestep the crude, rude and violent campaign trail bully and show off his presidential qualities. But as he introduced his wife Melania, it was she, and not he, who received a standing ovation and adulation from the entire chamber that never seemed to end. Upstaged by his own trophy wife, and her strange, alien affect, all he can do is grimace and fume, flipping the paper cover off his glass of water like a grumpy child.



Berger confesses that he doesn’t watch TV much but follows Twitter incessantly. “I’m pretty up on what’s going on,” he says. “People let me know if something insane happens.”  He adds “A big part of why I focus on certain moments,” says Berger, “is because I have social anxiety.” This nervous disorder fosters a painful self-consciousness, as well as a hypersensitivity towards others. “You almost feel like you’re looking at your own body. And you’re focusing on certain tics, like, ‘Oh, he smiled weird, or frowned or whatever, when I said something. What does that mean?’ So I focus on those things that likely happen in passing and have zero meaning behind them. But maybe they do …”

It is Trump, and his menagerie of grotesques that make up his inner circle, who offer up comedy gold for Berger.  He sees his videos as a kind of therapy, pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump’s positions while “showing empathy” for the working people “who were looking for help and never got it”. “Hopefully,” he says, “we can find a way to come together and use what Trump brought to the surface – and move ahead once he is out of office.”

Things I will take from Vic Berger

• Amplification of the awkward through cross cutting and repeating.
• Use of only found footage (with a few effects) to create a message.
• Modern day culture Jammer.
• Some celebrities and politcians suit themselves well to this.
• It can be an expose of the veneer of PC and media polish and training.