Untitled (211 Elizabeth Street/Alido Pavan/10 Minutes/1 Day)

2009

38:42

Audio recording on CD, art exhibition, cd player, audio system.

As my contribution to the project “Exhibition” at 211 Elizabeth St in New York City, I invited Mr. Alido Pavan to visit the space at 211 on his own, where the (continually changing) art project called “Exhibition” was taking place. I then interviewed him two times about what he remembered: first ten minutes after his visit and then again a day later.

I then excised all my questions from that audio so it now consisted of Alido’s responses and long expanses of quiet. This audio recording of his Alido’s retellings of what he could remember about the place was then played back in the space itself at 211 Elizabeth St. The audio level was moderate – it did not dominate ones attention in the room - even though the audio system I had use of looks formidable in the photo. The piece existed for August 13-15 2009 before being removed and the next artist’s intervention in the project took over.

In this piece I was interested in working with another persons consciousness/memory as a medium for an artwork. I was also interested in juxtaposing one persons recollection of a room with ones (as a visitor) direct experience of it. 

It is important to note that the whole project called “Exhibition” was conceived as an artwork in itself, of which my piece was one of a long string of contributions. For more on “Exhibition” at 211:

http://exhibition211.blogspot.com/