Created initially as an installation, following the invitation of Technisches Wien Museum for its permanent collection, the video The Life of Things (Das Leben der Dinge) presents interviews of nine people discovering ten objects that have not been indexed, so that the history of those objects is controversed and for what the museum conservators do not know what to do with.
Within a museum of science exhibiting a catalogue raisonné of objects and practices, The Life Of Things questions collective representations that objects are provoking when they become part of a collection, while we see nine people portrayed at the moment they are facing curiosity and uncertainty.
The only visible forms are white, vibrating and pixellized shadows appearing on the floor around the microphone and every spectator getting in the space. The installation evokes situations of theater followspot and also CCTV, putting visitors in a paradoxal situation of fear and self-exhibition with the microphone so offered.
A video of Feedbackroom has been released in DVD by Éditions du Point d’exclamation and Éditions du Parc / ENSA Nancy, 2009. Artwork created during the workshop Electroshop, École nationale Supérieure d’Art de Nancy / ICN Group / École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy. Related to: Frost, Residency, Shadow of a doubt, Core. See also the credits page.
Video recordings
ENSA Nancy et La Bellevilloise (Paris), 2007
A white dot on a black screen is following the spectator movements while he/she is using a computer mouse in front of it. Without activity, device broadcasts the sound of human breath, barely audible. When the dot moves, the voice of a woman appears, firtsly like if it’s static, thereafter it begins to grow and increases rapidly with the hand actioning the mouse.
As the spectator’s gesture develops or focuses on a point, as it speeds up or slows down, in motion or not, the sound unfolds, flourishes and enters the sound itself, opening larger gates. The voice shifts from breathing to whispering, from singing to shouting, from the tiniest details to burgeoning vocals.
It develops like an exploration into the very matter of sound and its depth only with gesture; the voice is reacting to the gesture and requests it. This blindfolded voyage ushers in a dialogue in between instrumental gesture and stroke. This sound gradually gives a shape to an acoustic body that stretches and opens through the tactile exploration – although this sensual and mental appreciation is offered to the player and spectator.
