Program The Dead

Program The Dead are a hard and heavy rock band from LA, who were very interested in a thing called a Verichip. Their music was deceptive, seeming at first rather aggressive, but on later exposure, revealing... read more a much greater variety and depth (in our humble opinion) feelings of despair, thwarted romance, set in the future perhaps, shades of Logan’s Run. Where was I? Ah, the Verichip, which is indeed veri interesting - it’s a chip that can be implanted in the body of a human and can send out radio information, and is the basis therefore of the electronic tagging of prisoners, and truant children in California. It is favoured by Brazilian businessmen to reduce the threat of kidnapping, and also by Spanish teenagers to obtain illicit alcohol by purloining the Verichips of adult drinkers. The Californian children were initially encouraged to wear Verichips to deter truancy and also reduce kidnapping, but the parents and the kids themselves complained that it was an infringement of their civil liberties (which was later upheld). It is much used for pets, where society is not quite so liberal. This is why the Verichip poses such a complex dilemma - keep track or keep control? it also reminded me of the clones in Bladerunner, so we dreamed up this dance where the women, like Stepford Wives, are the picture of compliance, and despite appearing to dance normally are seemingly lifeless or dead (as in Program The Dead) naked for god sake but not giving a damn. Obedient, sheeplike as if programmed, and who wants to dance with a sheep, I ask you? Somehow the mannequins lent a sinister jaded atmosphere, a neutered Helmut Newton, or a bit like an Edvard Munch painting, where their movements may be controlled by others, a dance that is not really a dance at all, more a dance of the dead.