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Sleeptalking

audio/textile installation 
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 stumbles on her words. By translating the lullaby into a song that should be practiced, the soothing qualities inherent in 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.

 



Wood: Matthew Coutts
Vocals: Signe Irene Time
Thanks to 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.
Documentation of the work at Stavanger Art Museum: Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad