Artist Statement

WEARABLE EXPERIENCE

Saturday is a sound-based artwork that participants experience through a bone-conductive glove interface. Saturday forms a uniquely intimate portrait of Chicago through a composite presentation of conversations “stolen” on Saturdays.
With the overuse of radio frequencies for wireless communications, there comes the increased occurrence of ‘crossed lines’ where a private conversation becomes accidentally shared. To create the interactive sound piece Saturday Sabrina Raaf used walkie-talkies, CB radios, and various other forms of consumer ‘security’ technology in order to actively harvest such communication leaks. Saturday, therefore, forms a uniquely intimate portrait of Humboldt Park, Chicago through a composite presentation of conversations stolen on Saturdays in the park.
Participants experience Saturday through a custom-designed glove interface. In order to hear the audio, participants press their gloved fingertips to their forehead and they ‘hear’ the sound without the use of their ears. Each glove is fitted with cutting-edge audio devices called ‘bone transducers’. These transducers translate sounds into vibration patterns which then resonate through bone. This piece permits a new way of listening. The user places their fingers to their forehead — in a gesture akin to Rodin’s The Thinker or of a clairvoyant — in order to tap into the lives of strangers. Pressing different combinations of fingers to the temple yields plural viewpoints and group conversations. These sounds are literally mixed in the bones of the Listener.

• Sabrina Raaf (US) is a Chicago-based artist who works in both experimental sculptural media and photography. She is a producer of creative machines- machines that independently make art when cross-pollinated with human interaction. The audio mix for Saturday was composed by John Kannenberg. raaf.org

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