In 2010 Slayer Pavilion presented Room 1983: Some Text Missing , at STYX Project Space, Berlin.
Room 1983: Some Text Missing concentrates its attention on the obscured subtexts of late Cold War era pop music and its relationship to the then-emerging medium of the music video, where meanings that were often masked in, or even removed from the texts of songs – as alleged in the case of Corey Hart’s hit single Sunglasses at Night – were expressed and objects and forms were transformed into signs to express pre-“historical 1984” fears of total nuclear war and totalitarian states. A replica of a 1950s nuclear testing observation shed from Bikini Atoll housing the sound of the Sputnik satellite stands opposite a triangle of dark sand caged in by spotlights that mimic prison bars. Sitting atop the sand is a red book and a pair of sunglasses, the first image in Corey Hart’s video for Sunglasses at Night. To the side of the shed leans a board bearing the graffiti Kilroy was here, used by American soldiers throughout World War II and the Korean War and referenced by the band Styx in their 1983 concept album of the same name that tells of the story of a fascist government that has outlawed rock and roll. Requiring all visitors to the room to wear uniform pairs of black sunglasses, Room 1983: Some Text Missing uses this object, ubiquitous in pop videos from the era, to turn its visitors into active participants in the room.
Giving additional consideration to other forms of cultural expression of anxiety,
annihilation fear, and things going missing, Room 1983: Some Text Missing, alongside
a limited edition book also titled Some Text Missing produced as a partner piece
to the Room, examines the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, itself a legend born
and popularized in the era of the Cold War.