5-cent American Flag

A cryptopolitical forensic investigation of the JFK assassination through acoustic ballistics and signs embedded into 1963 5-cent American flag stamps. --- "5-cent American Flag" takes a forensic approach to the conspiracy-fueled events of JFK’s assassination, creating an abstract cryptopolitical thriller that begs the question: which flags are we flying? More than 4,800 unique 5-cent American postage stamps from 1963 anxiously flutter across the screen, each bearing unique cancellation marks and slogans that become coded messages. The stamps were animated frame by frame over the distorted airwaves from a Gray Audograph recording of Dallas Police Department Presidential Motorcade communications on November 22, 1963, used by the FBI for acoustic gunshot analysis to determine the position of the shooter and the amount of gunshots. When words are absent on the soundtrack, custom-created rubber stamps applied to clear leader form black-inked cancellation marks that become enigmatic air waves, and red-inked U.S. flags are stamped and folded into the reel after the fatal gunshot(s) is heard on the tape, transforming into pareidolic bloodstain patterns that flood the screen.

Year

2024

Director

Vito A. Rowlands

Duration

6 min

Country

Belgium, United States

Language

English