 Antonia Hirsch 'Komma (After Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun)'Private View Thu 24 May 7-9pm Tramway 5 Exhibition runs Fri 25 May - Sun 1 July Presented in an installation context, Komma (after Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun) is a 16mm film installation based on Hollywood script writer Dalton Trumbo's seminal anti-war novel. The project re-imagines Dalton Trumbo's work through its idiosyncrasy – the book was printed entirely without comma's. Set around the time of World War I, the novel with its—then particularly inconvenient—anti-war message, was first published in 1939. The book came into true prominence during the Vietnam war era, after its author had re-emerged from McCarthyist blacklisting throughout the 1950s. The central device of Trumbo's novel is the body of the protagonist, a young American soldier who, incredibly, has lost his face and both arms and legs during combat. Unable to see, speak, hear, smell, or act, he is fully conscious, but seemingly completely without agency. As he struggles to come to terms with his personal tragedy, he strains to communicate with 'the outside world.' The entire book was written without commas, though all other punctuation conforms to established conventions. The term comma is derived from Greek 'komma', meaning 'something cut off.' The installation features a spoken word recording of the novel, white flashes in the film mark the location where commas in the text would of appeared according to the Chicago Style Manual. | 
