Heard words by BAT Studio
I recently headed up to Chester to shoot a small installation by BAT Studio as part of the Rogues Gallery series that took over a series of empty shops in the high street.
As visitors enter, microphones are listening… As soon as a visitor speaks, their words are transcribed by a series of machines dotted around the room. Every time someone speaks, the devices immediately reel out the words, printed onto streams of paper.
The streams will continue to flow and throughout the course of the festival, every spoken word will be recorded.
Communication can be considered the transfer of data. This installation both records and mis-records data, and through doing so creates a spatial and sculptural experience. Visitors will be able to return during throughout the festival and see the scribe’s interpreted verbal history of the space.
Speaking into the microphone set off all of the thermal printers in the space with the translated words being printed out. The interpretations of the spoken words were highly amusing at times and surprisingly accurate at others. Such a great idea but a tiny space unfortunately. Hopefully they can repeat it in a larger gallery space at some point. We also set up a time-lapse for the week it was on which will be uploaded soon.
