Annie Sarachan

Gigi, a peculiar voice both endearing and metallic, overlays a stream-of-consciousness. ​​Unreliable narrators have to consider, more than most, who gets the privilege of being believed. It is perhaps the curious voice that I (Annie) wish could be trusted.

Structure of the video chapters:

The speed of soundwaves at music intervals were translated into moving, visual ‘chapter headings.’ In between, Gigi’s voice emerges as the wolf interval: a dissonance which reveals the inaccurate idealism in Western music theory’s Platonic system of the “circle of fifths.” (In the material of sound, this circle is actually an ever-expanding spiral.)

This dissonant gap is frequently obscured in modern piano tuning by taking its average across all notes, sacrificing the so-called “perfect” intervals to avoid the harsh truth-telling wolf interval. Gigi takes up this avoidance in favor of what goes unheard, instead proposing an imagined persona of the wolf interval, one that slips slightly out of step, in order to share something it loves.

Installation materials:

Tablets and ultrasonic directional speakers, causing the voice to bounce from floor to ceiling into zones viewers pass through.

Used pneumatic air cylinder, used PVC tubes from waste management, fire pit lid, thumbtacks, pistachio shells, carved pencils.

Tablet stands: steel, altered Manhasset music stands, scrap metal cut-offs, drawing compasses, sheet music clip, tracing paper, hydraulic bottle jack, air valve, plumbing adapters, cast urethane rubber stoppers.

Wall drawing: cigarette and newspaper ash.