Let There Be Whistleblowers

A train passes through a tunnel and hurtles on to a station as time and space are distorted, set to the first part of Steve Reich’s “Drumming”. “The sound lends the film an almost voodoo-like atmosphere, not to mention accruing sexual overtones, as the locomotive enters and reenters a tunnel, or blurry patches of grey and white turn out to be passengers waving white handkerchiefs from open windows, like some ambiguous ancient ritual. History dissolves and becomes a facet of perception while both railways and film become means of twisting perception, as the subversive double meaning of the title’s ‘whistleblowers’ suggests.” Kirsty Bell, “Frieze Magazine”, October 2014.
Let There Be Whistleblowers constitutes an early foray into digital media, incorporating editing techniques developed in analogue film and specifically the Nervous System performances, in which the duo would manipulate multiple 16mm film projectors to achieve 3D depth effects from two-dimensional imagery – an optical effect that Jacobs called “Eternalism”.
Presented in memory of Flo and Ken Jacobs, the film was originally screened in Forum Expanded’s second edition in 2007. Until their passing in June and October of last year, respectively, the New York couple were close friends of the Arsenal, as well as of Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded.