Sea Oak was developed from a series of interviews conducted with the left-orientated think tank The Rockridge Institute in Berkeley, California. From 2001 until its closure in April 2008, the Institute researched contemporary political rhetorics with special emphasis on the employment of metaphor and framing. The strict absence of images throughout the film is introduced by institute member Eric Haas. He describes how, in every person, the term “bird” suggests a similar imagined being. This prototypical bird exists only in common thought (”we don’t think of an ostrich or a penguin…”) and provides the idea of an image to begin a film consisting of black leader and sound.

“Sea Oak” is the name of an industrial housing estate in a short story by George Saunders, a settlement where there are neither oaks nor any view of the sea, just a hundred subsidised apartments and a rear view of FedEx.

The themes within Sea Oak range from the use of symbolism in politics to the methods by which emotional values and religious paradigms have been woven into Republican discourse. Concepts of commonality are looked at through common ground, common wealth with the history of right wing think tanks in America and their impact in structuring ‘common sense’, finally ending on the co-option of progressive ideas by conservatives within language and through metaphor – why this has been necessary and how it is hopeful. The film Sea Oak puts trust in rationality, enlightened thinking and the frames of reference in which facts are made to appear transparent and up for discussion. In the sole spotlight of the space, only the apparatus can be seen, the film projector, staged like a sculpture.

Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London