To Forget - 2010
Sound Installation for Chester Performs at Chester Roman Gardens October 2010Collaborative Project with Jonathan Alibone
This piece seeks to provoke a visceral response from the listeners as they crouch or strain to hear barely audible tapping sounds emerging from several small speakers located along the length of the passage. To Forget co-opts the unavoidable associations suggested by the tapping to both intrigue and unnerve the listener, invoking the primitive communications of those individuals incarcerated, confined or otherwise trapped, where they are denied or unable to access more conventional means of communication.
Whether coded in order to relay information secretly, deliberate and sustained to intimidate and disconcert, or a desperate attempt to signal for help, the human activity of tapping is a strategy to overcome isolation and reach beyond barriers and walls. To Forget situates the listener on the 'outside', both physically in relation to the perceived source of the tapping, and psychologically by their inability to determine what is being communicated. Without the familiar points of reference (voice, visual clues or context), the listener is led to speculate on the origins and authors of the tapping, and its meaning.
Alexander Small & Jonathan Alibone © 2010 - 2012 all rights reserved