Specious Dialogue (I, II, III)

Specious Dialogue is a playful exploration of conversation. The work comprises two cubic sculptures mounted on casters, one black and one white, house battery-powered tiny cameras, as well as wireless recording and playback systems. These can be pushed, rolled, kicked and shoved around the gallery. The white form – the ‘listener’, continually eavesdrops on the audio environment, recording sounds when triggered by sudden loud noises. Meanwhile, the black ‘speaker’ outputs the harvested recordings collaged with pre-recorded sound clips – including scientific lectures, biblical readings in Arabic, Tagalog and Mandarin, poetry podcasts, field recordings and parliamentary debate. The distance between the two forms dictates which conversational fragments are played, while volume, distortion and tempo is altered capriciously.