Premio Combat Prize

The Words Spoken, from my Sticks and Stones video trilogy, focuses on the use of words and images to create and control public opinion. My interest in the subject was originally piqued when reading about women in ancient Greece and Rome, whose character was slandered because they were independent or powerful. While living in Rome, in November of 2007 I began following the Amanda Knox “student killer sex-game gone wrong” case in Perugia and became fascinated by the way she was depicted in the media based on words that the police, prosecution and lawyers used both in court and gave to the press. Those words were then picked up by the media, translated back and forth between languages and used to sell tabloid papers over the next 8 years of her trials. Even more words were added by anonymous internet users.
Over the four years that Amanda Knox was incarcerated I documented over 300 words and phrases in Italian and English which were used to characterize her, including “Succubus”, “Lilith” and “Whore of Babylon”. The seemingly endless list of invective drove me to look into the etymology and semantics of these words that were marshalled to drive a misogynist narrative and sell the prosecution’s ever changing theories.
I thought about how ancient Greek and Roman defixiones or ”curse tablets” were thought to bring harm to people that were involved in court battles, or against ”enemies”. The idea was that the curse would be carved into a tablet and then buried, and the power of of the word would take on a life of its own and do harm against the targeted person. In the age of the internet words used against people are transmitted around the world doing harm to people in an instant. They do not go away. Guilty or innocent, today one cannot escape the power of the word.
I found this case to be the perfect vehicle for exploring how words and images can control, define and be put to use in the art of character assassination, especially with regard to fears of female sexuality.
The Words Spoken Video: The Words are uttered by accusers in a relentless stream. These are the words that I documented that were used to describe 20 year old Amanda Knox, one of the first being ”spell-casting witch”. Others referred to the ancient fear of female sexuality and power, such as ”Lilith”, ”succubus”, ”she-devil”, ”whore”, ”femme fatale” and ”bewitcher of men”. Phrases were used such as ”she’s muddy on the outside because she’s dirty on the inside”, and ”likes hot, wild sex” and ”man-eater”.
Mis-translations also occurred: in Italy her childhood soccer moniker “Foxy Knoxy” which referred to her quickness on the soccer field as a kid, was translated to ”La volpe cattiva”, meaning ”the wicked fox”. The semantics behind the choice of the words and their etymology fascinated me. Even more, I was interested in how carefully chosen the words were, and that each one originated from a real person.
As the list grew I saw that they were the key to understanding how the creation of a fictional character was key to prop up theories which were not backed by fact. Had any one person in the history of mankind had been called so many brutal words and terms? Should words that do not have a factual basis be used in a trial against a person to sway opinion or should the judicial system be held accountable for representing only facts?
Sienna Reid is a multimedia artist from the Seattle area, currently living in NYC and working in her studio in Bushwick. Since the age of 19 she has been painting and drawing and exhibiting her work. She lived in Italy for 15 years starting in 1999, and regulary exhibited her paintings in Rome and Venice. It was there that multimedia art and film became an interest and her STICKS AND STONES project was begun starting in 2007, comprised of 3 videos, a series of 40 defixiones curse tablets, a series of 40 oil painting portraits of Amanda Knox made from images in the media, a series of ostraka; ceramics pot shards that document the words, and a series of photographs that explore the psychological and physical impact of name calling, with specific regard to women.
NB: The video that has been uploaded is the working version. The video to be submitted will have credits, a finished soundtrack and titles. There will not be a running second counter at the bottom.