Amaranth Borsuk, Brad Bouse: Whispering Galleries

Title:

Whispering Galleries

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

2014

Medium:

Net art with Leap Motion

Artist Statement:

In a domed whispering gallery, even the quietest sounds are carried from one end of the room to another: communication across great distance. Whispering Galleries delivers messages across time — helping a voice lost to history reach a contemporary audience. Visitors to Whispering Galleries see their own image reflected and distorted on a screen, and on its surface, a glowing text appears to float: an entry from an anonymous 1858 diary. The author worked with his hands in many roles: as a woodworker making handles, a dry goods clerk sweeping up and making trade, and a violinist making music at home and church. In daily entries, his week is measured by handwork. Visitors to Whispering Galleries use their own hands to sweep the dust from his diary: gesturing over a Leap Motion controller, they scatter pixels from the text, leaving behind a web of whispers: erasure poems that tell a hidden narrative of 19th-century life, labor, and art.