London and Berlin-based artists and photography professors Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin’s short film, ‘The Bureaucracy of Angels’ grabs the imagination immediately with an unlikely casting choice; the star of the show – a mechanical wrecking arm – makes a riveting appearance as a soulful ballad singer lamenting the pain of migration. Currently available to watch via the Lower East Side gallery Signs & Symbols’ website, the piece’s premise is absurd but the effect is first mesmerizing, then moving. Part destroyer, part guardian, the machine keeps watch over migrants being intercepted by rescue agencies before eventually wrecking boats abandoned by travelers who made it to Sicily. (Available online at signsandsymbols.art through May 13th).
