Remote Speaker Installation
Genevieve Quick considers global manufacturing, technology, communication, culture, and transnationality in an immersive installation that includes audio, video, and interactive components. Quick traces the globalized manufacturing of consumer electronics (a tablet, a smart speaker, an international clock radio, and a wifi router) and their components through corporate subsidiaries in numerous Asian countries. In personifying these products, they mirror the transnational identities of many immigrants from Asia. Using found answering machine messages, Quick transforms mundane messages of an anonymous woman, who appears to be a Vietnamese immigrant. As her daughter and friends leave messages in English and Vietnamese, globalized communication transforms into an intergalactic message sent out to the universe.
Hacking into consumer electronics, viewers travel routes through a circuit board-like installation, created from a Wii Dance Dance Revolution pad and other floor sensors that trigger sound and videos. Quick has sewn elaborate costumes for the characters that incorporate speakers and other devices, and has referenced Asian warrior armor, as well as Star Wars figures, like CP30 and R2D2. Two characters will serve as guides, and each has a unique communication ability; one can touch electronics and learn and share their histories, while the other sends out messages into space via intergalactic megaphone. Quick’s work addresses communication on all levels—from megaphones, answering machines, and the voice of Siri, to communication across oceans, through the air and into space via ships, planes and satellites.
Created while in residence at Recology, San Francisco
