whispering wall

1999

Exhibition: Myfanwy Ashmore and Norm White curated by Rob Ray

Deadtech Gallery, Chicago

Whispering Wall is a construction made up of a false wall with a row of eight electrical outlets installed in a row along the bottom. Photoresistors installed in the outlets are networked to a personal computer and used to detect the presence of a viewer standing in front of them. Once the viewer is detected, the outlets emit randomized sounds of small children playing. Cleverly, these faint sounds of the children's laughter pulls us down to inspect what trickery the the socket might be playing with us. Myfanwy's steers our head and eye level down to a 2 foot range by subverting what we know to be the functionality of the socket. This inspection of the socket as something different that what we've always known it to be makes me think of the times, as a kid, I was fascinated by these things that were on one hand so "adult" and dangerous but at the same time one of the few things that was positioned at my eye level and easily accessable to me as a 4 year old. -Rob Ray