Jessica Feldman is a NYC-based sound/media artist who is currently putting together an audio installation that uses recordings of people whispering their secrets. “I am in the secret-collecting process right now and I’d love it if some of you could contribute. Your identity will not be recorded. The secret can be in any language you wish, but I prefer that it be whispered. The more disturbing the secret, the better!”

Please call 1.800.749.0632. You will be asked the channel number, which is 12260 and the channel password, which is 12345. Then, just follow instructions! It’s very easy. “If you have questions, concerns, want to know more about the project, etc, feel free to email me at feldman.jm[at]gmail.com. Thank you!“

Overheard seeks to break down the boundaries of private and public sound and information by examining the way that amplification and recording and broadcast technologies can facilitate or destroy these boundaries. The work turns private sounds into public property, secret information into common knowledge, makes obvious the hidden and hides the obvious, seeking to invert the intentions of surveillance and increase our individual and collective awareness of our community’s habits of listening, listening in and being listened to. For the piece, Feldman has collected hundreds of individual recordings of people from the area whispering their secrets (with the promise that the recordings will be broadcast in such a way that the person becomes indistinguishable from these secrets.) The voices are then slightly manipulated in time/pitch and the recordings are played back, layered and sculpted, many at a time, in the extremely resonant, extremely public space of the arched passageway. The resultant sounds fill the arch with a rich chorus of the echoes and ghosts of these voices, each of which is just on the verge of audibility/distinguishability in relation to the others. The piece poses the possibility of removing the danger of sharing information by bringing voices together, in public.

Part of Roulette’s THE PUBLIC SOUNDS: A Festival of Sound Art in Public Space.