Peter Wareing

War-Fi Cowboys (2010)

16 min 55 secSingle channel / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

War-Fi Cowboys cuts between several characters embracing the spirit of pioneer settlers. Set to a soundtrack of twangy Cowboy guitar, a young man pretends to ride a horse through New York’s industrial wasteland, where he comes across a man sunbathing in the trash. In a military control room, a commander hands his subordinate instructions for "a new weapon". Later the subordinate is cast in a different role as a fish washed up on shore, while the voice-over says; “We now have proof that there is a finite amount of compassion in the world”—all adding up to an absurd and puerile tone poem.

War-Fi Cowboys had its beginnings in Wareing's video collaboration with Mike Taylor’s theatre production Not Dead Yet.

Other works by Peter Wareing

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