THE more things change . . .
“The name originated from my entry in the first year final group show. I titled the piece ‘The More Things Change…’ but this was solely for purposes of signage, catalogs and other quasi-official exhibition materials.”
The interior of the catalog shows the conceptual background of this piece. Text was handwritten, added to lined paper, and risograph printed.
My illustration of the tape player accompanying the tapes was posted near the recorder, as a fun didactic part of the installation. It had to be more inviting, whimsical, and explanatory than simply “Please touch!”
This collage adorned the silkscreened labels and the front cover of the “liner notes” explanatory zine included in the case. The images are all grandmothers and babies (four generations!) of my family - my great-grandmother holding my paternal grandmother as a baby, my grandmother holding my mother as a baby (and as a teenager), and my grandmother holding me. The digital collage was converted to halftone for screen printing, and because it looks cool.
Cutting down labels to be signed/editioned and inserted into the cassette cases.
I also took apart the tape recorder so I could keep the volume down. For one thing, it’s quite unsettling to suddenly hear a whisper played back at a loud volume. The removal of the volume knob also required listeners to hold the tape player up to one ear to hear the recordings, so only one person at a time could use the tape recorder. It also prevented people from skimming ahead until they hear the sped up squeaky hamster sounds that are characteristic of fast forwarding a tape while the play button is still held down. No cheating to find my secrets! I replaced the volume knob with a flat piece of black plastic to blend in especially well.
Printed tape labels. It’s always satisfying seeing the repeated image on the drying rack.
Each number of the edition corresponded to a secret poem on each tape. So in number 11 of the printed edition, a corresponding tape would be found in the case that contained “First Kiss” somewhere on it. I kept track of where on each tape the poems were hidden, because it was a different time for each poem. I stayed up late a lot of nights whispering secrets into the tape recorder.
After the installation was taken down, I didn’t hear many anonymous messages. I think people were more interested in trying to find the things I had hidden. However, I did get this gift - I left candy out next to the recorder as well, and someone shoved the wrapper into one of the cases.
