You are a fly on the wall in the Pennsylvania State House. Over the next few minutes the
Congress will argue, vote, write, read and sign — five separate occasions across five
weeks, not the single afternoon the famous painting shows. Then the room is yours and you
can walk up and read the thing itself.
Read this once, and you can trust every caption after it.
No transcript of these debates exists. Congress sat behind closed doors and kept no
record of what was said — only of what was moved and how men voted. So the film marks
every line for what it is, and the mark is on screen the whole time:
[V] words somebody actually wrote down, and the document they
come from. [S] what historians agree happened, though no one quoted it. [R] a reconstruction — an argument we know was made, in words
nobody recorded. Not a quotation, and never dressed as one. [U] not yet verified. Shown, and labelled, rather than quietly
dropped.
In a headset: look around freely; push the thumbstick to walk in the last act. On a computer: drag to look, W/A/S/D to walk. Attendant: the strip at the bottom pauses, steps and resets between visitors.
Dramatized reconstruction grounded in the tagged dossiers; documented words are
marked [V], scholarly consensus [S], tradition or reconstruction [R], unpinned figures [U].
The figures are sculptural figurines in stylized period dress, not claimed likenesses —
no photograph of these men can exist. The voices are interpretive casting for the same
reason: no recording of them can exist either.
—
The room is yours. Walk up to the table and read it.