Today’s main focus has been on the imminent exhibition ‘The Great Unanswered’ being hosted by Scaffold Gallery in Manchester. Our title that we were presented with is ‘What is Reality?’ and we are going to finally materialise an idea that we had a while back. The piece we’re going to show is a sound work, accompanied by an object. The setup is a landline phone atop a side table, one that is ambiguous enough that you might find in either the living room of a family home or in an office building. Coming from the phone is going to be a series of answer phone messages from an unidentified artist talking about an artwork that should have been dropped off earlier that day. This is intended to mimic a scene we’re all familiar with in films; the protagonist comes through the door, throws their keys into the bowl, presses the ‘messages’ button on their answering machine, and is faced with a string of fairly broken but still very clearly connected messages from a certain individual. The messages start off calm and informative but by the end they are emotional and frantic. A great example of this is in the 1996 film, Swingers, where Jon Favreau proves himself to be not quite as ‘money’ as he might think he is. (check it out >here<)
Our messages will be similar to these in the way that they tell a story and give an insight into an artist and an artwork. The voice will give a descriptions of the artwork but never quite enough detail to work out what it is – this leaves it up to the audience to decide what it could be. There will also be certain aspects of personality revealed when listening to the messages, when some people are upset they try and make other feel sorry for them, other might try to lash out in return. As the messages continue, the more the audience will discover until eventually they stop, with the case unresolved. We’ve decided we would also like the voice to be a woman, mirroring the under representation, and general dismissive attitude towards of women in the art world. This is a vague install image – we still need to figure out the logistic of getting a speaker into the base of the phone but we’re getting there. We should have the script ready to be recorded soon enough.
