The Lament Project - curated by Cindy Bernard, Kathy Brew, Beth Rosenberg, Martha Wilson and Tom Leeser: The curators invited fifty artists from various media to submit a one-minute original sound work that they could describe as a lament, a wail, a moan or a cry. The project grew from a desire to work with a wide variety of interdisciplinary artists to produce a unique online project that could respond to the personal and social anxiety found in today’s contemporary global culture. We thought that the best way Viralnet.net could cut through the corporate media’s commodification of suffering and conflict, would be in a personal and visceral way, using sound.

The lament is one of the world’s oldest musical and poetic forms for expressing sorrow and grief. It is found in both the east and the west, in classical traditions as well as folk traditions. It has evolved over the centuries informing new genres along the way, like the blues. It is a primal sound that is born from a place deep inside the individual and reflects the cries of the larger collective.

Even though there are many traditional laments to draw from, Viralnet.net encouraged the artists to invent new and personal interpretations of the form and to explore the full range of possibilities, spanning the humorous to the serious.

The Lament Project is part of the 2008 release of Viralnet.net, the Center’s online journal and project space .
Past Viralnet.net releases have featured projects by Kaucyila Brooke and Perry Hoberman, essays on media and culture by Norman Klein, Holly Willis, Christiana Yang, Martha Wilson, and Miriam Ghani and interviews with cultural critics and multimedia artists such as Lisa Nakamura, Sara Roberts, Lee Ranaldo and Leah Singer. In addition to the laments, Viralnet.net is also featuring in this release, essays by Abigail Child, and Keith and Mendi Obadike, poetry by Anthony McCann and an interview with artist and SASSAS Director, Cindy Bernard.