Output details

(.)

Solo exhibition, Matts Gallery London.

The installation continued my exploration of how we locate ourselves and are positioned in social space. The installation (.) reflects on the politics of listening through Sacha van Loo, a wiretap analyst working for Antwerp Central Police, skilled in interpreting the sonic dimensions of speech. Blind since birth, Sacha has the ability to interpret the acoustics of the voice and paralinguistic information such as tone and delivery. While surveillance involves the identification of people, listening for Sacha also involves building ‘images’ of people and contexts through sound and language. In the installation the darkened gallery space was organised by different voices and sonic spaces, leading the visitor to find their way physically and conceptually, through listening. Different ways of representing the subject - portraiture, identity profile, technical representation – accompanied these sonic ‘images’. The installation questioned conceptions of selfhood also through a questioning of the visual regime on which the subject is traditionally predicated. By immersing the visitor in sonic images, and presenting visual images that are invariably incomplete, the installation deprived the viewer of visual information. For example, in a video sequence of three chapters, each had one of the constituent colours of RGB removed, rendering an almost monochrome video image. Thus the subject is present in the installation as a project in formation, which cannot and should not be concluded.