Tracey Rose
Cockpit (2008)
The Cockpit explores Rose's sense of the theatrical in audacious yet prosaic, televisual form. Filmed at the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s studios with actors and props from the national television broadcaster, the piece involves an assortment of misfits and stock characters from movies including a Native American chief and a ‘Harry Potter-Jesus’.
While a group of male performers dressed in costumes sit together playing cards in a suburban house, a godlike figure – represented by a white male – appears inside a giant heart. As suggested by the title, the characters congregate around him and move through the set using a phallic shaped vehicle. Initially, they praise him until a Native-American chief speaks directly to the viewer and states that God’s wrath is responsible for people’s suffering and death. This spurs an attack on the godlike figure, who is beaten, stoned and burned alive. This scene resonates with the death of Maki Skosana, an anti-apartheid youth activist who was necklaced by an angry mob in 1985 on national TV. This attack occurred during former Prime Minister P. W. Botha’s announcement of the country’s State of Emergency. Rose’s film examines how white, patriarchal, state-sanctioned violence breeds interpersonal and community violence, leading to social disorder, mob violence and chaos. The film is accompanied by thirteen photographs, which show the characters appearing in it.