EAVESDROPPING
Exhibition/Installation
Soho Gallery, NYC

Exit Art/The First World
Exhibition: 1996

Eavesdropping, the one-way transgression of the boundary between the private and public, is an already existing component of the art gallery event. As a mechanism constructing the process of eavesdropping, this installation plays with the desire to listen-in to a private conversation. Ten chairs on wheels with twelve-foot-high backs form a continuous wall in their closed position. On the wall directly in front of the seats are ten isolated, low volume speakers that are connected to a remote microphone in the middle of the gallery. The microphone dangles overhead from a motorized pulley that slowly moves it across the gallery, scanning conversations. These private words are amplified and relayed to the ten speakers. Accoustical foam on the inside of the chairs creates a sound barrier, allowing the sitter to eavesdrop from behind the chairs.