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the Memory Tape of the Day
(1993) Printed Matter Bookstore, New York
The work begins with an excerpt from a telephone help line which assists callers to fall asleep. The words are printed on the storefront window, but seen more clearly as shadows on the window screen behind:
Our subject this evening is sleep, going to sleep.
Each night a short audio composition (including the telephone service, Cocteau’s Orpheé radio announcements, the sound of a clear running stream, Gluck’s Orpheus and Euridice, a solo improvisational saxophone, birds flying and attacking, and isolated voice-overs) was heard outside the entrance to the bookstore. Inside a single dream image flooded the back wall. This was repeated every night for six weeks, with a different image.
During the day a stack of altered books, copies of Georges Polti’s The 36 Dramatic Situations, with tiny images and audio text slipped between the bound pages, were the only residue of the previous night’s "work".