The Gossip Machine
Site Specific Sound Installation And Cadavre Exquis Mural Paintings
In Collaboration With Visual Artist Sandra Tebbe
Medium: Lamps With Built-in Speaker & Microphone,
Mural Paintings, 6 Ch Audio, Computer Controlled Routing Matrix
Exhibition: The Gossip Machine / 48h Neukölln
Heroes Gallery, Berlin-Neukölln 2011
Technical Realization: Pierre Zerbib & Anders Ehlin
*Supported by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
![]()
Site Specific Sound Installation And Cadavre Exquis Mural Paintings
In Collaboration With Visual Artist Sandra Tebbe
Medium: Lamps With Built-in Speaker & Microphone,
Mural Paintings, 6 Ch Audio, Computer Controlled Routing Matrix
Exhibition: The Gossip Machine / 48h Neukölln
Heroes Gallery, Berlin-Neukölln 2011
Technical Realization: Pierre Zerbib & Anders Ehlin*Supported by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
The Gossip Machine is a site specifc miss-communication device, inspired by the old ”whispering game”. Three or more communication hubs, each consisting of a microphone and a loudspeaker built into a table lamp, blinking according to the amplitude of the incoming audio for visual effect. All signals from the microphones are fed into a signal matrix, then randomly fed and/or chopped up into one of the receiving loudspeakers, i.e one of the lamps that did not send the signal. The matrix patching is controlled by a randomizing algorithm changing the routing between the sending microphone and the receiving loudspeaker. The fragmentizing of the audio is triggered by the loudness and sharpness of transients of the different incoming signals, thereby creating a disrupted and manipulated communication between all the three hubs. In periods one gets the impression of having an actual conversation, but the receiver and sender can independently change at any point, thus you never know how and by whom your own communicative efforts will be perceived.
The Installation was framed by mural paintings derived through “visual” gossip from a row of cadavre exquis sessions hosted by Sandra Tebbe.
