Hear It Here

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performed at :
SOMA, Mexico City, 2010.
Performa 09, New York, NY, 2009.
Link to video documentation
Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio, Zurich, 2009.
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara CA, 2008.
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, 2008.
Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, 2007


The installation and performance Hear It Here consists of two actors, an audience and an accordion player. The audience is invited to spontaneously create lines for the actors by speaking into microphones that feed directly to the actors’ headphones on stage. The actors repeat what they hear. The accordionist plays interludes that both interrupt and contain the action. The structure allows for an unplanned and nonlinear dialogue consisting of the audience’s stream of consciousness, and it lends a sense of responsibility to the audience, who must produce the performance for themselves. The set-up creates an inversion of stage and audience, a blurring between the performers and spectators; both speak and listen. The actors can be seen as props or surrogates for the audience, but accountability for what is said is diffused or diverted through the actors.

This is part of an ongoing project, versions of Hear It Hear has been staged thus far in New York City, Southern California, Miami Beach, and Zurich. The script of each Hear It Here staging becomes part of the archive of performances, serving both as a portrait of the audience and a starting point for a future body of work.