Nigel Cook

Sharon Hayes & Lawrence Weiner

Michelle Shocked

I'd never heard of this woman before, but man this audio is interesting!
Basically she started throwing out homophobic slurs in the middle of her gig in San Francisco...of all places she seriously chose San Fran.. anyway the audience begins to question her, many are confused but most of them leave half way through. Some even applaud her bold statements. It starts at around 4:15-4:30.

I didn't pay much attention to this article a few days ago when it was just a write up on how a musician said "God hates faggots" and told someone in the audience to tweet it. In fact I was confused as to what happened, and I didn't really care, the hate isn't worth listening to most of the time. What grabbed me was when this audio was released today. I started thinking about freedom of speech, and hate speech and the relationship between the two. It's my interest as a queer person that is showing you this article however I just find this audio fascinating. It almost sounds scripted. The sounds of the audience fading in and out as Shocked get's louder, and the mumbling in between mixed with her singing is intriguing to me. I like pulling it a part. Trying so hard to listen to what they're saying.

Read the rest of the article here

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"The anonymity of the Internet masks a layer of morphing human nature. The way in which we relate and communicate with each other, happens through a screen. We give ourselves new names, new faces, and a false sense of security. The game has changed and humans are changing with it. 

Have not the great Science Fiction writers of our time predicted just this; that vast advancement in technology would have incredible repercussions on the world and its inhabitants. We’re now examining ourselves through the social forums we’ve created for and of ourselves. We are living two lives at once, one in the physical and one in the digital. The question is, which foot is more firmly grounded? This, unlike other social phenomena, is not a question which can be answered by looking at a person’s age, sex, race or socio-economic status. So rarely can we predict who is living full force, in the digital world.   

A critique of our lives on social media cyberspace is made firstly through the exploration of the space itself; paring back the layers of dematerialisation to find that we are only dematerialising ourselves. "

 - Alexandra Hanna, Contextual Statement, 2012

Ayanah Moor - 'All My Girlfriends'

When recording my work for Followers (2012), I remembered hearing Ayanah Moor speak at AUT about her work, All My Girlfriends (2011).

I was always going to install my work in the studio space, instead of the elevator, because I enjoyed the way you could hear my droning voice as you walked through the studio space. When you arrive in my space, you are able to hear exactly what I'm saying, and finally, properly engage with the work. It reminds me of the performance I did in Talk Week, where my voice drew people in from different parts of the studio. Perhaps this work, on some level, does the same. When you arrive at the space, you encounter a small speaker, with two little speakers on the top facing outwards at opposite angles. I chose to have small speakers because I did not want to take away from the voice. Instead, the big, droning voice that one can hear throughout the studio, is only coming out of a small space. I could liken this to the way in which we use our digital voices in the small boxes we call computers, but I'll leave that for now.

I thought about Moor's work throughout my setting up process, and the recording process too. She uses an "audio book" like voice too. Her afflictions and pauses are used only when they need to be. It's as though she is introducing pageant contestants to the stage. Mine, however, needed to be a little more monotone. I was indeed reading the title of a persons blog and their follower numbers, but I wanted them all to be equal and speak for themselves. I knew that the affliction in my voice could make something SOUND interesting, however, the names and numbers themselves are already interesting and do not need unnecessary dressing up.

AYANAH MOOR - 'ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS'