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Janet Cardiff, In Real Time,
1999, site specific audio and video walk,
located in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, approximately
15 minutes
| Ask the Artists: Janet Cardiff |
| Question 1: Do you ever appear in your works of art? Are you in IN REAL TIME? |
| I always appear as a voice in my work. I'm interested in having the artist's voice actually speaking to the audience, as a direct connection. In REAL TIME I appear in a white lab coat in the microfilm room speaking to the audience but also to the main character which is 'me'. I wanted to do this as a play on the different levels of reality that are involved in the piece. |
| Question 2: How and why did you decide to use the Carnegie Library for this work? |
| I love libraries because they are like the mind. They are a world of stories that cross space and time. It's a wonderful metaphor that you don't even have to refer to because people subconsciously know it. It's also a place that traditionally is about knowledge, how we know the world and ourselves and others, but we know now that knowledge and truth are flexible and changeable according to who is doing the telling and at what point in history. |
| Question 3: Are your walks always site specific? |
| Yes. It is important for that connection to reality to have the sound recorded right on site. With IN REAL TIME the aspect of having to follow the video image and the real world image is very disorienting and makes the brain start to flip reality for fiction and the video for reality. The sound must be recorded on site otherwise it doesn't sound like it is in the right space. Each room has a different sound character and people are very trained at distinguishing the sound from a large empty room versus a small hallway versus another type of space. If i don't record on site then the added voices and people pop out of their space, they don't really seem to be there. Since my interest is also in creating alternative realities for a physical site then I must have everything fit perfectly. |
| Question 4: Is it difficult to develop a reputation in the art world when your works are site specific and unable to circulate to multiple venues? |
| It
does make it much more difficult. I am unable to participate in
approximately 80% of what is offered me because I don't have very many
works that can just pop into a group show. As well it takes a lot of
creative energy to respond to a site and to produce a new work. It is also
more expensive to produce on site then it would be to make a work like
that at home and it can only be sold to the institution that has sponsored
it. It can't be sold to a collector or to another museum. Most
institutions now are purchasing the pieces which helps alot so that all of
the work that goes into a piece is not just for a short time period and so
that i can make a living.
One major problem is also the format because walk pieces are a bit invisible, and many of the audience members miss the pieces unintentionally. Other problems are because a lot of people have difficulty participating in an artwork that:
One of the best aspects of this format is that when a person does commit to doing a walk they get involved for almost twenty minutes rather than the normal 20 seconds that is given a lot of works. As well the audio gives them an intimate connection with me, the artist. |
| Question 5: Why did you include the sci-fi element in the narrative of such an exciting and disorienting piece? The idea of being programmed is such a rehashed and uninteresting concept that it seems superfluous to the work. |
| How can you separate story from the work? To say that something is rehashed and uninteresting means that I was not successful in making the concepts interesting for you or that I failed to add anything more to the dialogue. It wasn't necessarily about sci-fi or being programmed. But the ideas that relate to that about our existence in the world is what really interests me--the relationship to the basic philosophical ideas about how do we know we are really here and not just dreaming, or how do we know that the physical world exists when we are surrounded by simulacra. Also what do new technologies tell us about how we function in the world. Many new thinkers believe that we are basically computers, that we are programmed through genetics and upbringing and that our consciousness of even God is part of the programming. I guess when our heart stops it is like someone turning off the computer or camera. I was attempting to create a piece that would make you feel like you had been in a dream. The references to sci-fi are to make you remember the alternative fiction movies that you've seen and read so that they will mix into your thoughts as you walk through the real space. |
| Question 6: What is the music one hears near the end of the walk, and why did you choose to incorporate it? |
| The music is from a recording of the last living castrata. The only recording of a castrata that's ever been done in fact and was recorded in 1902. I used it mostly for its haunting and beautiful quality but also because of how it is about changing attitudes and history and about death, which fits into a library full of old books. Did you know that there were many hundreds of boys castrated every year in Italy, hoping to become singers in the Pope’s choir. Many poor parents would do this to their boys hoping their sons would gain a living but mostly their voices never developed and they were just left neutered for life. |
| Janet Cardiff's CI:99/00 page |