Vidjoke — Jaclyn Reyes

Vid-joke (2018)
VIDEO INSTALLATION

In November 2013, just days after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) devastated the Philippines, climate negotiator Yeb Sañodelivered a widely shared address at COP19 in Warsaw, pleading for urgent action on climate change. Later that week, New Zealand Member of Parliament Russel Norman read Saño’s words aloud in Parliament during a motion on Haiyan, where the official transcript recorded interruptions and reported laughter, underscoring the dissonance between a call for justice and its reception in political spaces.

Vid-joke takes this moment as a starting point, using the familiar format of videoke—complete with lo-fi karaoke machine graphics, scrolling lyrics, and timed prompts—to reframe Saño’s speech as a participatory script. Set to the instrumental of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” the work references the song’s notorious history in the Philippines, where a string of violent incidents in karaoke bars, known as the “My Way killings,” made it infamous. In this context, the act of performing certain words in public has been associated with danger, conflict, and even fatal consequences.

By pairing Saño’s plea for climate action with the music of a song linked to public risk, Vid-joke draws attention to a broader reality: the Philippines is among the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders, where speaking out for ecological justice can carry life-threatening stakes. The work invites viewers to voice Saño’s words themselves, making visible the tension between testimony, collective participation, and the dangers that can shadow public expression.