I detest the sounds that come from mouths full of food. The crunching and swirling, the mashing and nibbling, the swallowing and slurping. All of these sounds are hard for me to handle. For this piece, I wanted to present these sounds in a situation that made them inescapable- but I also wanted them to be playful and interactive.
My installation consisted of the sounds of chewing, crunching, smacking and swallowing playing loudly from hidden speakers at the top of a large stairwell. The sound could be heard all the way to the bottom, but was clearer as the participants neared the source. On the way to the source there was a table. On it sat a note with the printed words "go ahead..." and a bowl full of bright orange carrots. My hope was that the participants would take a handful of carrots and join in the making of noise, creating a sort of "smacking symphony."
The installation was a a success in my eyes, however, I still feel like the stairwell was not the perfect place in which to house it. My first choice was to somehow hide the speakers in the elevator in the VAC. Elevators are such a place of entrapment because you cannot break free from them when they are in motion. They offer a very tightly closed space usually filled with the awkward silence of strangers being thrust together for short periods of time with nothing else to do but to stand there. The smacking noises would have only added to the awkward reality of an elevator experience and would also have forced the viewer to endure the sound for an allotted amount of time. The elevator would have mimicked the situation that I face in life when it comes to feeling powerless and trapped when lip-smacking ensues. Another option I thought of was to hide the speakers in a very quiet section of the library. This would have aroused a sense of curiosity (hopefully) but also would have been quite annoying to those who had set up shop there to study. Both of these options I asked permissions for, and both requests were denied. So, I went with the 3rd best option of making the piece participatory. I feel that it might have been a success, although I would have liked the participants to chew their carrots louder (and I could possibly turn the speakers down a bit) so that more of a symphony of smacking could have been created.Thank you for your participation.
-Jenna
Photographs by Adam Milner
Jenna,
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but I immediately thought of snow when I first saw and experienced your installation. I am wondering if the bright colored food first brought me to Christmas then to snow. I felt as a class we were having this deep experience together just because we were all doing and experiencing the same thing at the same time. I think to a certain degree this always happens in art as a group of people come together to witness a performance or a painting but for some reason maybe the simple task of eating the carrot and the intense focus all on the sound of the carrot I felt we were all in this together, possibly all performing together. Have you ever gone outside on a snowy day and you see some one in their yard a few doors down and usually you never talk but now you do because you have the snow in common it is something that you are both experiencing at the same time. This is what I experienced and it was a very beautiful and thought provoking moment for me. Thank you.
It was beautiful for me too but i thought of rain, because I kept hearing the 'drips' that were in fact crunches all the way up the stairs; then when we reached the top there was a cosy sharing and togetherness and for this reason it transformed the space as do all the best pieces so far - they transform the space and energy
ReplyDelete