Over the course of the semester in History of Time Based Media many of the artists and their pieces have been inspiring. One project discovered in class that inspired this project was Listening Post by artists Mark Hanson and Ben Rubin. The installation culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other public forums and displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens. The concept of taking others’ words and making them uniform in a work of art was interesting to me. Around the same time, I stumbled across an artist’s website by the name of Asia Wong that displayed three hundred colored squares that were links to three hundred letters that she wrote. In her project statement she mentions an encounter in which she had to explain the project:
So I’m telling this boy…about this project. “I’m writing three hundred love letters and sending them to strangers. The letters are going to be glued to the outside of the envelopes, so that the mailman, and presumably whoever the recipient lives with, will be able to see and read them. The letters aren’t to the strangers, they’re to people I know.” He says, “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” and I answer vaguely, talking about crossing space and the kind of intimacy that I believe is lacking from our society. And I’m left thinking: Is this project complicated or simple, idiotic or interesting?
I felt much the same way once I decided on my concept and project. I wasn’t quite sure what the meaning or true concept would be at first, but I knew that was where I wanted to start. I decided that I wanted to collect handwritten letters from people I knew or were acquainted with and have who ever the author was write a letter to a person about a subject or event they felt strongly about, were concealing, or simply wanted to get off their chest. I sent out a mass message on Facebook requesting letters from friends and family from out of town and also asked classmates, sorority sisters, and friends for their participation. Requesting letters went something like this:
Allow yourself to write something you have wanted to get off your chest. Recall current or past events, people, experiences. You are free to be as personal or as deep as you want. It can be simple, complex, serious or not serious. Interpret the request however you want. The letter can be written to whomever you choose: a friend, family member, God, a stranger, a lover, yourself…whoever your emotions pertain to. The letter can be anywhere from a few sentences to a full page; whatever you feel. I want these letters to be as anonymous as possible. DO NOT sign your name. You may include the recipient’s name if you want. PLEASE NOTE: These letters will be displayed for others to see, so if you aren’t comfortable with that thought, you do not have to participate. I will in no way try to use any information contained in these letters to exploit anybody in any way. I am not trying to “dig up any dirt” or embarrass anybody.
Once I collected approximately 75 written letters, some of which I contributed myself, I had to come up with a way to display them that somehow could relate to the content I received. In my research, I stumbled upon this image:
The transparent display inspired my next move. I thought about the concept of transparency in relation to my concept. I researched the installation in the picture and found that it was from an exhibition on the theme “Transparency” that was displayed in the summer of 2007 by the artisans, designers and artists of Fiskars Cooperative. The theme was interpreted at both concrete and abstract levels through the means of art, design, and craftsmanship. Their concept for this exhibit was based on the idea that transparency is widely used in social discourses to denote openness and honesty. The concept also has a powerful visual impact on our environment. They said that,
Transparency has created a new aesthetic norm: it reveals both abstract and tangible structures and puts what was secret into the public domain…The media reality, the simultaneous presence of truth and illusion, has obscured the nature of what is actually real. Mercifully, this has coincided with an increased public awareness of the structures of democracy and the impact of the media.
Thus the idea of photocopying the letters on to transparency sheets was conceived. I put them together so that it was displayed in such a way that people could interact with the installation not only by stopping to read it, but they could walk around it seeing and reading from all angles.
I then began to think back to Listening Post. In conjunction with the visual display, a voice synthesizer simultaneously playing with the moving text reads the streaming words. It was from this piece that I decided to record the automated voice of a computer’s screen reading software reading the letters displayed. The transparent display of not only the physical letters but also the transparency of content provided by myself and participants come together under the monotone audio provided. I feel each element can live separately from one another but also inform each other. Finally, my piece was complete.
While it was hanging in the hallway after presenting to the class, I found that after a few days something had been attached to it. I assumed it was a note saying to get this thing out of the hall, but turns out it was not. Somebody had read one of the letters and attached their response to it! I was so excited that people were still contributing to the piece and felt compelled to do so because they had some kind of connection to what they saw. So exciting!
At the end of 2009, I entered the piece into the 2010 Student Jury Show in the UTC Cress Art Gallery. It was selected by juror Patrick DeGuira. It didn’t win any special award, but the fact that it was selected was nice enough!
Here are some pictures of the final piece as it was displayed. I decided, in the end, that the recorded audio was no longer necessary. I think the work truly speaks for itself.
