In this work, Michael Blum reworks the end of the film America As Seen by a Frenchman by François Reichenbach. This documentary was made in 1960, and paints the portrait of a happy and prosperous America, several years prior to the Vietnam War. Michael Blum reuses the final shot of this film, but inverses it. He modifies it by adding a soundtrack made from a remixed version of a speech by George Bush pronounced on 11 September 2001, his "Address to the nation".

In 2003, America was still profoundly affected by the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. Since then, the country has been engaged in a war against terrorism. As part of this offensive on 20 March 2003, the United States declared war on Iraq, two years after having attacked Afghanistan. When Michael Blum made America Rewind, America no longer represented a dream destination.

Michael Blum builds an ironic relationship between the shots of buildings from the sixties, images of an America full of rising hope, and the hard-hitting speech by Georges W. Bush. Through sound editing, the artist reinvents phrases extracted from the original speech. The work on rhythmic associations between image and sound, as well as the occasional use of repetition, creates a scansion that forces the spectator to become aware of the incantations of political discourse at a key moment in the history of the United States.

Priscilia Marques
Translated by Anna Knight