Ananda Serné

Sleeptalking

audio/textile installation at Stavanger Art Museum
2020

Sleeptalking brings together a recording of a vocalist rehearsing a lullaby and a set of textiles on wooden frames. The vocalist doesn’t fully remember the lyrics of the lullaby and she stumbles on her words. By translating the lullaby into a song that should be practiced, the soothing qualities inherent to lullabies transform into something else. The colours of the textiles derived from cyanotype, indigo and a blue light-gathering pigment found in cyanobacteria.

The cyanobacteria is the simplest organism currently known to have a day- and night rhythm.

Thanks to:

Matthew Coutts for the wood.
Signe Irene Time for the vocals.
Chronobiologist Shona Wood from UiT The Arctic University of Norway for telling me about the sleep-wake rhythm of tiny organisms.

Supported by Fond for Lyd og Bilde and Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond.

Photography: Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad