DOGWHISTLE
SERIES, 2019-??READ MORE ABOUT DOG WHISTLE HERE︎︎︎
“A dog whistle is an pressure activated technology that emits sound, usually between 23 to 54 kHz. Some humans can hear these noises and others cannot, resulting in a sound nearest to silence, with the exception of the sensation of sound. It’s not uncommon that those experiencing these frequencies to describe them using synonyms for irritating or looming. They describe it as a bug in their ear, following them wherever they go, consistently manufacturing an awareness of one's’ body in a state of discomfort that wasn’t present before. It is literally, physiologically the loudest silence.
The 2018 essay On Future And Working Through What Hurts, from Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, he presents a similar situation in which silence (read : a heaviness, a lack from which one cannot escape) is deafeningly haunting experience the body and consciousness, forcing it to swim in a well of grief without a clear origin - and subsequently without a clear path to relief. If we don’t know where the sensation is coming from, or if we have a general idea but can't sit long enough with it understand how to remove it, how do we stop the resulting feelings for which it is a catalyst? Likewise, when one learns to live alongside this silence, this sensation, what do we lose along with its removal?”
“Time becomes stretched and dilated with the increasing need to be rid or understand a darkness that follows, drawing one back into a “frequented locale” where that pain is always already ever present. To visit that space and “endure” feels like an insurmountable task. Bringing it back to the sensation of ultrasonic sound; if you were to be made nauseous by a sound you weren’t sure how to un-hear, how many seconds would feel like hours? What communication would you allow yourself to have under these conditions?”
“DOG WHISTLE begins and remains in its entirety; starting with addressing the technical aspects of the frequency, moving through a discussion on the spectrum of sensation that follows, into the cyclical attempts at trying to remove it without any real understanding of a conclusion, to a sitting or plateauing in the midst of that “silence.”
Through an audiovisual installation that acts as a platform for a live performance, DOG WHISTLE is presented in four parts: YEARN AND CIRCLE, BIDE AND LEVEL, GRIND AND SEETH, CURVE AND SHATTER. This work is a way to talk about fugitive communication as site for negotiation of power, tolerance, fantasy, denial, madness.
Functionally : DOG WHISTLE is a 30m, looped 2-4 channel video work turned installation showing a 4 part narrative about exploring the boundaries of sensation through technology (read: pain, read pleasure) in contrast to an analysis/visualization of a digitally produced sound work featuring ultrasonic frequencies to be played in the space. “
[1] DOG WHISTLE (2019)
6 channel installation : steel, glass, rubber mulch, .mp4
previously on view @ Always, Already, Haunting, "disss-co," Haunt
the kitchen, nyc
[2] DOG-WHISTLE_V2.MP4(L8NITE-SCREENER)EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE ON A2P.
Originally created for LaTurbo Avedon’s twicegoodnight program.
[3] DOG WHISTLE vBSMNT_SEQ3.1
@ BSMNT (KNOCKDWN CTR, NYC)
[4] i would’ve said goodbye if i thought you loved me back
Squeaky Wheel; Buffalo, NY
[5] closeLISTENER(reverse, react, “desire”) ︎︎︎
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art ; Madison, WI