Law and Order
The 'cold-opens' or small vignettes that kick off each Law & Order episode were used to create the 3-channel installation. Seasons 1, 10, and 20 were used, spanning footage from 1990-2010.
These 'cold-opens' generally do not include the main actors, rather they are meant to simply set the stage and provide a tone. Each vignette captures a small-scale portrait of the year it was produced, and in weaving these snippets of mass media DNA together, they become an effective representation of the social and political climate of the decade.
Footage was edited from morning to night, each decade (one projection per season) marches through the longest, most intense, NY day.
The wording of the ‘all persons fictitious’ disclaimer, which bookends each Law & Order episode, shifts slightly, sometimes by only a word or two, perhaps to acknowledge similarity to real-life events while maintaining non-representation. All the disclaimers from season 1, 10 and 20 were edited together to form the companionate video all persons fictitious.