April 2020. Web art piece for hoperaperta.com
Installation for Hoperaperta II, Milan, with video. During Milan Design Week 2020, 5vie.
Exhibition Totem e Tabù, ovvero il Mondo Capovolto
Materials: photographs, story, sounds.
HEARING HEARING
Second hand life.
“Locked in my room,
my dream goes wandering
over brothels,”
a Japanese poet wrote.
.
We can only spy, or eavesdrop.
Even memories are borrowed, so choose them well.
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From what seems a distant world.
I have always enjoyed listening to the music – tiny, compressed – that escapes from earbuds worn by people on public transport. Isolated from the life around them, they often hum or even sing along, seemingly oblivious to the fact that other passengers can hear them. They unwittingly offer us a glimpse of their inner selves.
An American tourist on tram number 2 in Milan. He’s listening to Serge Gainsbourg and singing along in English translation, not in French. His song is like a keyhole through which I can peek into his brain. Marcel Duchamp once famously said: “you can see seeing, but you cannot hear hearing.” Yet in this stolen moment I am hearing hearing.
((Please listen with real speakers or headphones, not the useless little speakers of your laptop))
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