bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong

Bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong

“bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong” (the title comes from shorthand names for five basic theories of the origin of human language, the other two being “la-la” and “yo-he-ho”) is a large installation through which the audience can walk at will.
The viewer enters a large , rather featureless space measuring about 15 by 18 metres and 5 metres high. The walls are white and the floor is polished wood.
walk through installation
The first part of the room is empty, but the rest is occupied by 25 tall, thin, white, square columns arranged in a grid. Each column is 2 metres tall and 30cm square, about 30 cm from the top, the front face has a small loudspeaker mounted flush with the surface.
They are all emitting noises intermittently, the sounds being repeated at intervals ranging from 20secs to 6 minutes. Individually the noises are not loud, so moving around in the room allows a different combination of sounds to be heard.
The columns are lit by a single flood light mounted on the ceiling at the front of the room, the first row is quite brightly lit, but the space becomes dimmer and more shadowy as you move deeper in.
The sounds themselves are edited fragments of computer speech, a variety of accents and voice characteristics can be picked out, but no understandable language or words emerge.
Wandering through the room one gains the impression that some kind of communication is being attempted, though no meaningful sense can be made of the combinations of primitive phonemes.
bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong installed bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong installed

bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong installed bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong installed
back to main site  listen to a short recording of the installation