The city can be an overwhelming environment to live in. The condensed traffic, people and architecture assume the form of a hostile and oppressive domain, where we seek to both achieve a sense of individualism as well as an anonymity in order to harmonize with the mass of faces that we pass without acknowledgement of other. This interplay of passive-impassive heightens the disorientating effect that these factors can have upon our sense of individualism, when superimposed upon the chaos of community. People, places and faces merge into an orchestra of aggression whereby the ‘individual other’ is seen as part of the sum of whole, and as such a part, is meaningless and ultimately expendable.
I created the soundscape to amplify the exploration of confusion.
This project began in an art space at Singapore’s Esplanade in 2006 and can be realized as a series of projected images onto muslin cloth hung from an arrangement of ‘washing lines’ criss-crossing the void like a grid of wires. The significance of muslin is that it holds an innate intimateness whether due to its historical significance or the fact that as a child, it was an integral part of many of the dishes that I saw being prepared for important family gatherings. In this contrast of discord and association the experience of disorientation, isolation and emptiness of experience is intensified.
Installation at The Esplanade for Blueprint 2006
contact ann@annhealey.com