In dialogue: Katrina Niebergal & Andrew Wilson respond to the Call Centre prompt via a series of isolated segments from transcribed conversations.
5.
Did you see the video of the guy in Berlin who had his laptop picked up in nudist camp by a family of wild boar? The boar came and picked up his bag and ran off with it, and this naked man, was chasing this boar family.
Butt naked also?
Exactly. It couldn’t be more German.
Did he end up catching the pig?
Yeah, he got it. He caught it. The guy who made the video was relaying it as a happy story. He’d asked the naked man for permission who was laughing and said: “yeah of course, its funny, share it with the world”.
I did see the video of the explosion in Beirut. There was this big cloud of smoke, and I said ‘that’s intense’, then the whole thing actually detonated. Super crazy.
As if there wasn’t already enough going on. I hadn’t watched the news in ages actually, and then that day I put the news on.
I was going say it’s one thing after another and such is the machine, you know?
It’s interesting to notice your reactions when things like that happen. Often such a cynical nature. Quickly asking who’s done this? Why have they done this?
You can very quickly end up on a cycle of cynical stories.
I saw it on the BBC. It was interesting to see how it was structured, but also the response. I don’t know who it was, what official, but the message that was being highlighted at that moment was something like:
“Whoever did this is going to pay for it”.
Then it turns out the stuff, the cargo, had been sitting there for ten years or more, the owners had just abandoned it. But the story was whoever did this injured 5000 people, and killed 130 or something. Whoever is responsible is going to pay for this, that was the story.
Yeah, like our initial instinct is to find someone to blame, and then for revenge, like we've all watched too many 1980's action movies.
Yeah, it’s not a conspirational thing, or a terrorist activity, it was just a crazy accident.
But there will be somebody responsible.
Perhaps its not always a person, perhaps it’s a system, do you know what I mean?
Like the neglect, within or inherent to a structure rather than simply 'that dude over there, let’s get him'.