In the Green Zone: November 2007
2008
SD Video
Continuous Loop
From Jason Lahman’s essay The Warriors’ Turn: Compassion and Control in Jason Hanasik’s Militaria for Art21
“In the Green Zone: November 2007” is a second loop which is generally shown alongside Hanasik’s series of photos and objects “ He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore.” Krowswork had installed this as a projection in a room full of old church pews where visitors could sit. With my back pressed firmly against the vintage furniture of worship, I noticed my posture changing. The turning image of Sharrod just a few feet away had affected me physically and I was suddenly aware of my spine and the ability to hold it erect. In complete contrast to these exercises in holding form, “In the Green Zone” shows two soldiers dancing together, caught in a moment of childlike fun, without thought, as it were, of meaning. It is not a memorized pyrrhic dance but a spontaneous expression of the joyful moment. We are unaccustomed in our society to seeing grown men engaging in behavior that is so gentle, funny and intimate.
The sense of recognition that I experienced grew stronger the longer I sat with the work. Then I suddenly remembered the 1894 Edison footage of two men dancing together. There is an uncanny similarity between these two pieces. On a phenomenological level we occupy the spot of the proverbial fly on the wall, peeking in at an unguarded moment in which men shed their social armor of aggressive and/or formal gestures and allow a spontaneous softness to emanate from their bodies. On a sociological level we can consider how these images show us the fluidity of a category as contentious and unstable as “masculinity.”
