Sounder and Relay (2010), with Silvia Ruzanka
Computer, two channel video projection, custom software, electronics, telegraph equipment
Sounder and Relay is a meditation on online romance in the age of the telegraph. Two video projections show computer-generated figures in Victorian interiors. As the two tap messages on their telegraphs, the signals are transmitted across the room through physical antique telegraph equipment. The text is composed of dialogue excerpts from the novel Wired Love: A Romance in Dots and Dashes. Written in the 1860’s by Ella Cheever Thayer, a former telegraph operator, the story prefigures the world of the Internet, avatars, online dating, and the blurring boundaries between real and electronically generated worlds.
