The Whispering Voice Materiality Aural Qualities and The Reconstruction of Memories in The Works of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller Tina Rigby Hanssen PDF

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MSMI 4:1 Spring 10 39
doi:10.3828/msmi.2010.2
The Whispering Voice

Materiality, aural qualities and the recon-
struction of memories in the works of
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
TINA RIGBY HANSSEN
This article explores the works of Janet Cardiff and George Bures
Miller with the intention of investigating how the staging of different
aural qualities, and the human voice in particular, contributes to the
process of reconstructing memories. It pays specific attention to the
installation work The Paradise Institute, which deploys old movie styles,
sonic montages and different voices in order to manipulate memory
and time. Furthermore, there are emphases on the effects of binaural
recording technique, the juxtapositions of sound and image, and the
manipulation of the voice. Most critical are questions relating to the
materiality of the whispering voice, its ability to communicate an
intimate experience, and the ways it can interact with its surroundings.
This article also discusses the nature of our participation in this work,
the perceptual and experiential consequences of sounds that require
mediation through binaural recording, and the ways that this tech-
nology may provide a richer mode of experience and may contribute
to individual associations and reconstruction of memory.
When somebody once described my work as physical cinema, I agreed. The

sound collages I make are like filmic soundtracks for the real world that
[give] you a sense of being in a film thats moving through space.
(Cardiff, quoted in Schaub 2005: 100)
The Canadian artist Janet Cardiff has worked for years with the physical
effects of sound in site-specific audio-walks through museums and
urban landscapes as well in installations. In the work The Missing Voice:
Case Study B (1999), an audio-walk made for Whitechapel Gallery in
London, Cardiff uses different technology and sound recordings to
induce an interplay between different historical times and spaces: you
40 4:1 Spring 10 MSMI
Tina Rigby Hanssen The Whispering Voice
hear fragments of music and dialogue from old movies, clips from a
radio play, the sound of a voice recorder being rewound and replayed,
a voice describing a scene from the Second World War, and so forth.
Allusions to outmoded styles are also found in the installation work
Opera for a Small Room (2005), where old opera records (with an
emphasis on the great tenors) and occasional pop tunes are employed in
a stylised way. In this installation almost two thousand records are
stacked around the room surrounded by knick-knacks, and eight record
players which turn on and off, robotically synchronising with the sound-
track. The music pours out from 24 antique loudspeakers. The sounds
of someone moving and sorting albums are also staged as part of the
overall experience. The dusty sound of old records and the scratches
and crackle in the vinyl together tell the story not only of the records
long use and worn condition but also of the limitations and imperfec-
tions of old mediation technologies.1 The sound of vinyl provides the 1 For more on tech-
nostalgia and the use
work with an aura of old age and physicality. In fact, both of these works of media-associated
enable an investigation of the recollection and the reconstruction of noise from old tech-
memory by shedding new light on the interaction and exchange nology in music and art
see Fickers 2009 and
between embodied human life and technologically based media. More Auner 2000.
than being a nostalgic quest for the past, these works use of outmoded
technologies may prompt in the visitor a unique chain of associational
responses and imagery.
Cardiff s multimedia installation The Paradise Institute a work made in
collaboration with George Bures Miller is, as we shall see, part of this
investigation. It was first presented at the 2001 Venice Biennale, through
screenings at fixed hours, just as in a movie theatre. The work consists of
a plywood structure, a 13-minute digital video, and binaural audio tracks.
The structure, a miniature replica of an old movie theatre, can accommo-
date seventeen people in two rows of velvet-covered seats that compose a
balcony. But while this balcony is full-sized, the space below it is an illusion
with miniature seats and a screen. After taking your seat, you put on the
headphones that are attached to it. The first sounds you hear are the
sounds of people talking around you and taking their coats off, footsteps,
laughing, eating noises; and then a voice begins whispering in your ear.
The film on the screen comprises a mix of genres thriller, film noir,
science fiction, and experimental film and features both dialogue and
musical interludes.2 The story is constantly interrupted by the noise from 2 The story derives
from Cardiff s work
the audience, which generates a gap between anticipation and dissipation Drogans Nightmare
in effect, a vividly transitory space. The sounds blur the boundaries (1998), which began as
between the three types of spaces in the installation: the miniature theatre a script for an unrealised
film by George Bures
itself and the physical presence of other audience members, the story Miller.
presented through images and sounds on the screen, and the space of the
virtual audience evoked by the sounds from the headphones. In this way,
The Paradise Institute puts into play a number of elements and weaves
together different spaces and times. The staging of different elements
within a larger structure fits a typical description of installation art in
general. The different elements not only transform the space it occupies,
they also trigger associations and recollections in the viewer. In contrast to
the confrontational video installations of the 1970s, we find a more
3 Working in the 1970s, inclusive approach in many video-installation works today.3
artists like Vito Acconci, With The Paradise Institute (2001) as its starting point, this article will
Bruce Nauman, Dan
Graham, Charlemagne look at the role of the whispering voice and the materiality of sound in
Palestine and Joan the process of reconstructing memories and recollection. I shall begin by
Jonas, among others,
often adopted an aggres- discussing binaural recording techniques and the manipulation of the
sive and confrontational human voice. I shall then examine how digitisation and mediatisation
tone by, for example,
placing the viewer in a
affect our experience of the voice, and what the implications of such tech-
uncomfortable or claus- nological mediations are for our experience. Finally, I shall address the
trophobic situation, in ways in which acts of recollection and memories seem to be reflected in
order to make them
question their surround- the multi-layered structure of the installation.
ings and their phenom-
enological experience
within them.
Binaural recording and its effects
Binaural sound is both a special recording technique and a particular
way of approaching sound. Using a dummys head (or a real one), one
places two small microphones directly into the ears in order to capture
exactly the sounds as they arrive. When this recording is played back
over headphones, the pre-recorded events reproduce the sound envi-
4 See Bartlett 1991: ronment as if it were live.4
96100; or Alten 1999:
512.
In everyday life we depend not only on two eardrums (along with
head movements) but also on the external ears, or pinnae, to locate
sound. The external ears nooks and crannies actually constitute a spatial
filter that changes the frequency content of a sound depending on the
direction. The external ear discriminates between relatively minor
spectral disturbances, but is also unique to each person; thus binaural
recording is never absolutely the same to everyone. But in contrast to
other stereo recording techniques, binaural recording attempts to
emulate the sonic-shaping function of the head and ears. Binaural
recording works either to preserve the original sound field of a particular
space and atmosphere, or to reintroduce the sound from one place into
another place whereby all of the reflections of a particular setting are
recorded and recreated from their original positions. In short, it moves
the listener into the scene of an original performance, in contrast to other
space-related recording techniques like Dolby surround sound, for
example that move the acoustic event to the listener.
Because it is possible to layer binaural recording during editing,

Cardiff and Miller were able to introduce a multi-layer soundtrack to The
Paradise Institute: they placed the whispering voice of Janet to the right
of the listeners head, friends talking among themselves were placed
behind and around the listener, and so on. All of the recordings that were
made on location in a big theatre have been re-recorded with a binaural
headset, so that when you sit in the miniature theatre, it seems that the
soundtrack of the film on the screen comes from speakers in a big
theatre. The illusion would be complete were it not for the fact that the
audience knows that they are taking part in a constructed situation in the
moment they compare the small box to the auditory space presented
there. Hence, this awareness has consequences for the audiences way of
listening, given that they no longer experience that which is presented as
natural and self-evident, but as constructed according to certain conven-
tions. At times, the binaural recording is almost too good, spectacular
even, in its re-creation of the soundscape, a trompe loreille that fabricates
a close resemblance to reality. But like trompe loeil, its visual equivalent,
the feelings produced by this trompe loreille comes closer to hyper-reality
in that it corresponds not to the objective reality but to a secondary
representation of it. The moment the listeners realise that they are
confronted with an illusion, they begin to question their experience of
the apparent reality.
By virtue of this perhaps obvious exaggeration or intensification of
sonic reality, the binaural recording raises the possibility of the visitor
being fooled by what is taken for real.5 The Paradise Institute plants this 5 For more on trompe
loeil and its effects see
feeling of doubt firmly in the audience members aural perception of Gosetti-Ferencei 2005:
space: we even want to turn round or to take the headphones off to check 87.
whether the sound is coming from the physical space or not. Ambiguity
persists largely because the way we interpret a sound in a space has much
to do with context. A sound may be identified as being real and as
belonging to a particular environment even if it is fabricated. In fact, the
reference point of audience members today relates more often to sounds
designed for television and film than from their lived experience.6 As a 6 See Chion 1994: 107.
result, we often accept these kinds of exaggerated mediatised sounds as

somehow true, and real sounds as being rather pale in comparison.
Moreover, a binaural recording creates an individualised and intimate
impression, or the sense that, as Jennifer Fisher puts it, the recorded
sound is inside you, sharing your own interoceptive processes.7 In other 7 Fisher 1999: 30.
Interoceptive processes
words, the sounds feel so close and intimate that they seem inseparable can be related to
from your own body, and thus create a totally different experience from stimuli arising within
the kind presented by a trompe loeil, where the illusion remains at a the body and especially
in the viscera.
distance. By sharing an intimate space with the listener, a binaural
recording also makes the auditory experience more physical, as

something felt and remembered with the body, instead of as something
detached: the visitors become part of the performance, and of the activi-
ties that take place. This quality of intimacy may have important bearing
on the processes of remembrance and embodied memory, which we shall
return to later in this article. But first we need to consider the placement
and aural quality of the whispering voice in particular.
The whispering voice and proximity

It is commonly recognised that the human voice exerts a powerful
influence on our way of interpreting meaning in film. The spatiality of
Cardiff s voice stands out from the rest of the binaural recording in The
Paradise Institute, and thereby has the strongest effect on the listener. Her
voice is recorded in close proximity to the microphone (and the listeners
8 In most of their ear), whereas others are generally kept at a distance.8 The artists
collaborations Cardiff
has executed the
mediated voice here not only implies a connection to a unique person, but
binaural recordings also an intrusion or an eavesdropping into a private conversation. This is
and played the main probably why we find it both intimate and alienating at the same time.
character. Miller has
worked on the editing In his analysis of the communicative use of sound in television, Arnt
and lent his voice to Maas has examined the mediated voice and its expressive qualities. He
other characters.
has demonstrated how the voice indicates orientation through breathi-
ness, the whisper, the scream and so forth. His analysis can be useful here
when we try to describe the whispering voice of Janet. Though hearing
is not as precise as sight with respect to judging distance, we can certainly
distinguish nearby speech from more distant speech. Maas adopts the
term proxemics from Edward T. Hall (1969) in order to develop categories
for mediated voices. Hall emphasises the importance of spatial proximity
and physical relationships, and distinguishes four main proxemic zones:
(a) an intimate zone the zone most relevant to the whispering voice of
Janet where subjects are within 45 centimetres of each other and the
voice might be characterised by moaning, breathing, affectionate whis-
pering, intimate confessions, or confidentiality; (b) a personal zone
(around 45120 centimetres apart); (c) a social zone (1.53.7 metres
apart); and (d) a public zone (more than 3.7 metres). Within each zone
Hall also identifies a near and far region (Maas 2002: 15979).
Maas applies proxemics to the communicative use of the mediated
voice and introduces three levels of analysis: (a) vocal distance, which
describes the way the voice in itself signifies a particular proxemic rela-
tionship (for example, a whispering voice is intended for a listener within
touching distance); (b) intended earshot, where volume will indicate the
intended target (a speaker, for example, addresses a larger or distant

audience with a loud voice); (c) microphone perspective, the mise-en-scne of
the voice created through technological apparatus and acoustical charac-
teristics that impact the judging of distance (for example, the choice and
placement of a microphone).9 Maas also combines contradictory 9 When talking about
proxemic relations. He uses the Norwegian TV2 promo featuring a voices in auditory close-
up in film, it is not
woman whispering the words Se hva som skjer! (Look whats immediately obvious
happening!) as an example, claiming that it represents the single largest what scholars like Chion
(1994), Altman (1992)
gap between vocal distance and intended earshot ever in Norwegian tele- or Lastra (1992) mean
vision, the whispering voice being the loudest sound heard there up to by close-up sound,
because they neglect to
that point (ibid: 15979). This promo gives the impression of being both provide examples or
very close and very public at the same time, a contradiction that intro- transcriptions of
different sound
duces uncertainty to the orientation and placement of the voice. If we perspectives. This is
adopt Maass terminology for the whispering voice of Janet, we find however what Maas
that the vocal distance implies a very nearby listener, as does the micro- set out to do in this
research.
phone distance the sound quality includes no reflecting sounds, a low
voice, and the effect of a close conversation. The intended earshot, on the
other hand, seems to be greater than a normal whispering voice would
be in a non-mediated face-to-face conversation. It seems rather to corre-
spond with Halls social zone.10 This form of manipulation of the whis- 10 Eidsvik has pointed
pering voice in turn creates a distortion of our listening which prompts out that dialogue is
usually boosted to above
a feeling of uncertainty about how close the voice is actually situated in seventy decibels in the
relation to our own listening position. However, Maass perspective is movie theatre (about
twice as loud as normal
not fully sufficient for analysing adequately technologies such as binaural business conversation)
recording and the use of headphones, because his study concentrates on to make sure everyone
can hear it, even in large
listening in a setting of ordinary television viewing, which is quite unlike theatres (2005: 71).
the effect of binaural recording.
The artists choice of binaural recording seems to be grounded in a
wish to work both with unique or defined voices and with a complex
spatial relationship among them. Cardiff claims that this choice creates
a clearer, more intimate, and more real experience.11 This sweeping 11 Interview with Janet
Cardiff in Schaub 2005:
characterisation is open to certain objections. Although the technique 174.
certainly heightens and intensifies the viewers experience, it is ques-
tionable whether or not the technique, as it is used in The Paradise
Institute, really leads the listeners to a higher consciousness of their own
physical body when in fact they are immersed in darkness and sound.
It is more likely that, in the immersive soundscape that Cardiff and 12 With the introduction
Miller produce, personal associations overtake any heightened self- of minimalist sculpture
awareness of phenomenological perception.12 But before proceeding in the 1960s, heightened
self-awareness became
any further, it is necessary to consider the voices placement outside the the paradigmatic goal
frame of the screen. for all perceptual labour
with regard to
In discussing the not (yet) visualised voice in film, Michel Chion uses installation art.
the term acousmtre, which he adopts from Pierre Schaeffer. He argues

that the acousmtre has a particular ability to be everywhere, to see all, to
13 The role of the voice know all, and to have complete power (1999: 24).13 He also connects its
in film and television has power to a form of panoptic fantasy, or total mastery of space through
been widely discussed by
many film scholars. See vision, and concludes that the intervention of an acousmatic voice, or a
Chion 1999, Silverman voice heard without the physical body visible on screen, often makes the
1988, Altman 1992 and
Doane 1985. story into a quest to anchor the voice in a body or a character on screen.
When the voice is not localised but separated from the body, and then
returns as an acousmtre, it speaks from an I-voice position, in close
proximity to the spectators ear (ibid: 49). The voice of Janet has two
features similar to the I-voice and its placement: a feeling of extreme
closeness and implied intimacy, and a sonic dryness or absence of reverb
that makes it difficult to locate the voice specifically. But the voice of
Janet also addresses the viewer as a known companion, asking questions
and waiting for responses, which introduces a conversational dimension
to the work. It is this element that allows for a deconstruction of the
acousmatic effect of power the conversational tone of the piece and its
relational effect seem to disempower the voice itself. It is not an all-
knowing, authoritative off-screen voice but a voice that wants to engage
in conversation and to interact with its audience. Whether or not we
accept this voices overtures is another matter.
Several times, the whispering voice of Janet also takes on a conspira-
torial tone, which introduces the impression of her mistaking the listener
for someone else and unintentionally revealing things that were intended
for other ears. In her book Overhearing Film Dialogues, Sarah Kozloff notes
that the term eavesdropping is a loaded term, implying that the
filmgoer is doing something surreptitious, something that gives him or
her secret power and/or sexual pleasure (2000: 14). In other words, the
viewers sit in the dark and have more or less possession over things
unknown or hidden from the character on the screen, or they listen in as
the characters enact intimate scenes. Eavesdropping, then, has much in
common with the invasion of privacy. In addition, eavesdropping might
provide us with insight into how speakers design their utterances with
overhearers in mind speakers can lead overhearers to form correct
hypotheses, incorrect hypotheses, or even no coherent hypotheses at all
14 Kozloff quotes (Clark and Carlson in Kozloff 2000: 15).14 This is particularly relevant in
Herbert H. Clark and relation to The Paradise Institute because it allows audiences to make
Thomas B. Carlsons
article Hearers and different connections and outcomes to the story on the screen at the same
speech acts in Language time as Janets whispering voice repeatedly suggests, insinuates and
58, no. 2 (1982), 3445.
denies different hypotheses. Indeed, much of the effect of this work lies
with the listener who has to re-interpret what s/he has heard.
The mediated voice and the question of

authenticity
The voice, especially the whispering voice, has a remarkable power to
seduce or move the listener. The voice not only claims our attention but
also has an impact on the way we might view a person, character,
situation, song, or entire film (think of the importance of Marlon
Brandos hoarse, cracking, intimate voice in The Godfather, or the expres-
sive singing of Janis Joplin). The seductive effect of Janets voice is
emphasised by Madeleine Grynsztejn:
[Janets voice has] this sort of Lauren Bacall resonance to it thats simply
unforgettable and that gets under your skin. what makes her voice so
affective is that its at once very approachable and at the same time incred-
ibly sexy. Its seductive but creepy, too; in other words, it draws you in, but
you know its not good for you.
(Schaub 2005: 176)
The voice of Janet is crucial to the experience of intimacy and presence

in relation to the audience, and its performance must be as alive and
authentic as possible. But there are different ways of listening to the
voice. In his book Performing Rites, Simon Frith discusses four of them:
the voice as an instrument, the voice as a body, the voice as a person, and
the voice as a role or character. Accordingly, we can listen to the abstract
qualities of the voice and its materiality, or we can listen to the voice as
connected to a particular person or character (1998: 1918): whichever
way, it retains a link to the world that surrounds it and is always heard
within a context of established cultural rules and norms.
In relation to the singing voice, Frith finds that authenticity is typically
constructed, a staging of expected norms within which the voice is
understood as authentic and real and as an expression of personality.
Janets voice comes from her body and tells the story of her breath, the
articulation of her lips and tongue and so on. They are part of her
identity and the moment in which they were constructed. Although the
voice is mediated, we still tend to connect it to a person or character.
Though Janet is never visually revealed, the sounds of her voice,
movements and breath evoke her presence, telling us that she is in the
same space as the rest of the audience and is taking part in the same
balcony experience (or at least the artists try to establish that effect).
Although we may not believe that she actually is present in the space, we
accept the sound of her voice. But she can, of course, never be present as
a true person; her voice is too close and too intimate, which tells us that
its reproduction and amplification engage the senses in a different way
from a face-to-face interaction. Moreover, digital software has made it

possible to manipulate sound in different ways: it can be delayed, filtered,
stretched, compressed, equalised, inverted, faded or combined with
other recordings, and so on. This means that the effect of authenticity
depends on investing the recording of the voice with verisimilitude so
that it becomes meaningful to us or corresponds to the ways we interpret
reality. But though we know the recording is not live, we often find
ourselves acting according to habitual behaviour by turning around or
listening in on the conversation. This tells us that our senses have been
disciplined by new technology sound technology in particular.
On live performances within a mediatised culture, Philip Auslander
addresses the common assumption that the live event is real and that
mediatised events are secondary and somehow artificial reproductions of
the real. He argues that:
live performance is always already inscribed with traces of the possibility of

technical mediation (i.e., mediatisation) that defines it as live the im-
mediate is not prior to mediation but derives precisely from the mutually
defining relationship between the im-mediate and the mediated. Similarly,
live performance cannot be said to have ontological or historical priority
over mediatisation, since liveness was made visible only by the possibility of
technical reproduction.
15 Jonathan Sterne (Auslander 2008: 567)15
argues in a similar way,
The recording process
didnt capture a live Our understanding of liveness today is, in other words, influenced by
performance. If any- our experience with television, computers and other mediating tech-
thing, the performance
was designed to capture nologies, as well as the conventions and codes connected to them. I think
the recording (2006: this is exactly what The Paradise Institute tries to emphasise by creating a
342).
situation that allows us to reflect on the enormous impact that recorded
sound, and the whispering voice in particular, has on our experience.
The reconstruction of memories

In The Paradise Institute it is the qualitative difference between the sound
of the film and the sound of the audience that enables Cardiff and Miller
to work with a displacement of the images on the screen: the space in
front of the screen seems closer and more intimate than the space
onscreen (despite the many close-up shots). This effect is due to the fact
that the recording process has altered, and to some degree flattened, on-
screen sound.
The images on the screen are in dim black-and-white reproduction
with long blank stretches where only sound is presented to the audience.
The film itself consists of short cuts and scenes taken from a hospital bed,
a bar, a car driving on a dark road, a night shooting, a pretty girl running
in a corridor, a villain talking on the telephone, and other, even more
obscure, images of a house in flames all of these derived from familiar
iconography in popular cinema. Although Cardiff and Miller show an
interest in film traditions and techniques, the effect of The Paradise
Institute is ultimately deconstructive, in that it never presents a whole
coherent story but bits and pieces that seem familiar. Cardiff explains
that they wanted to make a narrative that recalled many films that wed
seen but that doesnt tell you everything, a strategy that encourages
viewers to put the pieces together on their own.16 Hence, the encounter 16 Even some of the
with the work might resemble a form of dj vu or flashback.17 In other music has been recycled
a bar singer is imitating
words, the meaning seems not to be constructed in the images them- Marlene Dietrichs
selves, but in our relationship with and recollection of these kinds of performance of the
song Johnny.
familiar images from the world of cinema.
17 Although Cardiff and
The Paradise Institute establishes a space of infinite interpretations and Miller also use flashbacks
possibilities that reflect on the nature of viewing and listening, and the in a traditional way,
where an image in the
fundamental act of making connections and recollections. All of the present dissolves to an
elements the whispering voice of Janet that talks about her own image in the past, it is
memories, one of the characters on the screen who talks about his the role of the mediated
whispering voice that is
memories, friends talking about different films they have experienced, of particular interest
fragments in the film that connect it to other films add multiple layers of here. In classical cinema
flashbacks often feature
time and space both to our collective experience of the physical environ- as an image or a filmic
ment that surrounds us and to our own recollection and past experience. segment that is under-
stood as representing
The voice of Janet seems to recall the inner voice of speech or temporal occurrences
dialogue, or how we think and talk about a movie, suggesting to the anterior to those in the
images that preceded it
viewer a slippage in memory with comments like or maybe that was (Turim 1989: 1). Gaps
another movie. According to Thomas Trummer the inner voice in the narrative would
suggests the split between the ego, and the dialogue with someone else often be filled in by a
later flashback (ibid: 36).
it is a presence that doesnt need any actual space, but still claims it
(2007: 16). The inner voice is also important for the construction of
memories and recollection in the way that it often negotiates different
understandings of an event. Inner speech does, however, distinguish
itself from other forms of auditory imagination in that it is not a presen-
tation of another persons voice nor resembles listening to someone
recalled, fantasised, or spontaneously remembered: a kind of listening
which is also present in The Paradise Institute in the form of a bar singer
who imitates Marlene Dietrich or in comments like Wasnt he in that
18 More on the distinc-
movie we saw here last week?.18
tion between inner
If we approach the nature and function of the act of recollection we speech and other forms
find that it is often described as a psychological flashback that registers as of auditory imagination
can be found in Ihde
memory. However, memory is not constructed in a linear, progressive 2007: 13844.
19 See Bergson 1991:

development.19 It consists of a dynamic process that involves personal
145; Dijck 2007: 31, 36;
and Bartlett 1932: 205. revelation, fantasy, false memory, virtual and altered memory of a partic-
According to Bartlett ular occurrence, erasure and replacement in the present moment of
subjects alter narratives
of a story to make it fit reception, which might also involve amnesia and collapse of memory. A
in with their existing degradation of memories is common as they are collected and cross-
schemata, for example
by deleting irrelevant
referenced over the course of a lifetime. The process of memorisation,
information, changing conceptualisation, and collapse of memory is reflected in the structure of
the emphasis to points The Paradise Institute. The whispering voice seems to correspond with an
they consider to be
significant, and ratio- inner voice that is in the process of evaluating or updating memories of
nalising the part that a particular film or films seen in the past. The images on the screen also
did not make sense, to
make the story more seem to overlap with memories and to influence the way Janet deals with
comprehensible to reality: suddenly she has to leave in order to check if she has left the
themselves. In other
words, memory is burner on at home this happens after images of a house in flames have
reconstructive rather appeared on the screen. Images and sounds are often mnemonic devices
than reproductive.
that help cope with the confusion of memories: for example, once we see
a face or hear a voice, we tend to remember a character or a person
better. This is applicable to a whole narrative as well; once we have
something physical to connect it to, we tend to remember it better.
The ambiguity that The Paradise Institute produces namely, the
seeming uncertainty of verifying whether it is real or not creates a
blurring between distinct modes of time. We are not sure if the scene
presented to us is occurring in the present or in the past. There is contin-
uous overlapping between different kinds of space and time: on the
screen you see a shot of the character Doctor coming down a hallway,
and then suddenly a door seems to squeak behind you in the theatre
space. Then you hear the voice of Doctor behind you saying Dont
move. You thought you were pretty smart playing both sides. At one
point there even seems to be someone yelling outside the door of the
structure, at which point we may experience a dramatic and powerful
shift of perception in order to accommodate the new interpretation.
Together, these effects contribute to a transition between different states
and an intersection of time and spaces.
Technologisation of perception and listening

The Paradise Institute introduces an obvious paradox: although the viewer
is sharing the balcony experience with other people who are physically
present inside the wooden structure, it is the sound of the virtual
audience conveyed through the binaural recordings that influences the
viewers experience of the work. When the audience laughs, we want to
laugh. When they clap their hands, we want to clap too. When they start
to count, we also want to count. All these sounds emphasise the social
interaction and conventions involved with movie-going, whether we are
aware of them or not.
Given Western cultural expectations on the norms of cinema specta-
torship, it is interesting to notice that in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for
example, it is perfectly normal to talk and even to make loud comments
during screenings, mainly because the movie-theatre experience there is
considered to be a social event (Lundeby 2002). But in most Western
countries it is customary to whisper during screenings.20 The meaning of 20 For more on the
this social practice is, in other words, culturally located, as are the indi- production of respectful
screen-oriented
vidual subjects who experience it. audiences, see Altman
If the space in a movie theatre is viewed as a public space of specta- 1999: 27 and Sterne
2003: 161.
torship, a space of collective rather than private experience, headphones
are normally associated with private listening and subjective hearing. The
Paradise Institute, in contrast, introduces what Jonathan Sterne has called
an alone-together listening, where groups of people simultaneously
listen to the same material but through isolating devices such as head-
phones (Sterne 2003: 15). The question that arises is why the artists chose
to use headphones, which introduce a solitary aspect. Except for the
obvious reason that binaural recording needs headphones to be
perceived, Cardiff and Millers piece raises questions about the distinc-
tion between human beings actually coming together with their bodies
and sharing a physical space, a space for interaction and speech, in
contrast to what gets heard via microphones. I think this distinction is
exactly what Cardiff and Millers work insists upon: we are immersed in
sound, but are at the same time separated by media, a distinction that
also provokes the separation between interior and exterior space, or,
more precisely, the oscillation that takes place between the two of them.
We are removed from that world in which shared perceptions connect us
to our fellow visitors, and we come to realise how profoundly the audible
affects our perception of the physical. We need, then, not only to view the
body as acting through a technical mediation, but also to take into consid-
eration that subjectivity is actually created through it.21 Binaural 21 See Verbeek 2005:
recording and headphones increase our awareness of the material 130.
presence of sound, but, at the same time, they obscure or preclude our
relationship with our fellow audience members. Although we may
visually register the movements of fellow visitors, we are prevented from
interacting with them on an aural level.
New sound technology has in many ways informed the overlap
between private and public space. Headphones and mobile sound
devices, for example, embody a mediating role in the daily lives of
human beings. Moreover, they change the way we are in the world and
how we interact with it sound is not only filtered through our bodies,
memories, and environments, but it does so to an even greater degree
through different technologies. Don Ihdes analysis of the way in which
technologies mediate human perception offers a point of departure here:
he argues that mediation may strengthen specific aspects of the reality
perceived while it may weaken others (1990: 32, 14043). When we use
a telephone, for instance, we talk to others from a distance, but we are
only audibly present to each other, not visually or corporeally.
Nevertheless it is not viewed as an external tool but as an extension of
ourselves. We experience another person through technology. With the
use of headphones in The Paradise Institute we are visually but not aurally
present to our fellow audience members. Yet to assume that headphones
and binaural recording limit our perception of reality would be to miss
the point, when in fact they provide us with a totally different perception.
They transform our experience by providing us with a new representa-
tion of reality. This not only has consequences for the shaping of sonic
space but also for the production of subjectivity. According to Peter-Paul
Verbeek the process of technological mediation is not something that
take[s] place between a subject and an object, but rather coshapes subjec-
tivity and objectivity (2005: 130; emphases in the original). With regard
to Cardiff and Millers piece, then, both sonic space and subjectivity are
being constituted in the process of mediation. In this sense, the sound
constructs our experience of the work, but we also construct it through
our perception and engagement.
Conclusion
It is possible to view Cardiff and Millers piece as a nostalgic yearning for
a form of aural vocal intimacy that seems to be lost within the modern
cinematic context. Chrissie Iles argues that the reason for this emphasis
is that cinema today has become an exaggeratedly immersive space.
Everything is heightened, especially the sound Going to the cinema
didnt used to be like thatYou were more aware of the audience, and
the space around you, and of each others conversations (2003: 88). Still,
The Paradise Institute is not attempting to restore a missing past through
old aesthetics and styles, for it only uses fragments of them in order to
prompt in the viewers their own associations and recollections in order
to create meaning. Human memory is something insufficient, untimely,
even vicious: it often plays tricks on our consciousness by continuously
making us question and re-evaluate our recollection of past experiences.
It is these processes that Cardiff and Miller have convincingly brought

forward in their staging and structuring of The Paradise Institute.
By orchestrating a situation where we have difficulty in drawing a clear
distinction between the so-called normal acoustic environment and the
pre-recorded sounds in it, Cardiff and Miller point to the ways in which
the technologisation of perception has affected the ways we see and listen
in movie theatres today. In so doing they provide a context that places
sound within a broader set of questions about public and private space.
More critically, they provide us with a possibility of reflecting on the ways
we are affected and shaped by the acoustic environment of which we are
part, and with which we interact. The Paradise Institute raises a number of
issues regarding the relationship between the work and the audience, in
a form that is clearly more complex than exists in the movie theatre
today. It permits both the highlighting of existing structural features of
the cinematic apparatus and, equally, the appreciation of audiovisual
qualities. As a result, the visitor is given a possibility to become more
aware of how existing conventions shape, structure, and frame our
viewing and listening within a cinematic context.
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