A Small Leak of an Interior Monologue

2021 | Installation | Hexagon wooden room, Glass eyes, 6 channel audio composition | Variable dimensions 
With the voices of Lorena Izquerdo Aparicio, Rabih Beaini, Audrey Chen, Elisabetta Lanfredini, Ute Wassermann and Raed Yassin   

During the past year, the world went through a period of isolation unlike anything ever seen before in history. Our collective unconscious has been deeply scarred on so many levels, it will take time to digest the many guises and echoes that will boomerang back to us in future from this prolonged experience. Calls to communicate, complaints and grievances, hymns and songs, thoughts of existence, life and death are but a few common traits of the outpouring of emotions we all felt. It is as if these feelings are on a feedback loop inside us, echoing and moving at an irregular pace, not knowing when they will resurface again. 

This process mimics that of a constant droning hum, a sound that resonates only inside our body while our mouth is closed. Humming is a very personal act, one that is the sonic manifestation of internal feelings that are seldom expressed outwardly; an interior monologue of a resonant body that never speaks. 

The work here is a space within a space: inside it, the sound of six singers humming a tune can be heard. The work represents the disembodied experience, through the humming inside our lungs, to the disbelief of our eyes and ears, like the allegory of a Russian doll that peels back the complex layers of human emotion.

Video documentation
Concept & Edit: Isabell Spengler; Camera: Lilli Kuschel, Stefan Korsinsky, Isabell Spengler; Additional sound mix: Adam Asnan

Photos by Tony Elieh