Process: The Tongue Rug, the Jukebox and the Wishing-Table

Reading Peter Handke’s Essai sur le juke-box (Gallimard, 1992; VERSUCH ÜBER DIE JUKEBOX, 1990), this passage struck me:

Ces boîtes à musique-là étaient reconnaissables rien qu’à leurs programmes; avec ce méli-mélo d’écriture à la machine et à la main et surtout la diversité des écritures, souvent différentes de touché en touché, l’une en capitals à l’encre, l’autre presque sténographiée, à la façon relâchée des secretaires, mais la plupart, et cela quels que soient les paraphes ou les inclinaisons des caractères, tracées, apparemment avec un soin et une application tout particuliers, certaines comme peintes, telles des écritures d’enfants et parmi toutes les fautes, toujours ces titres de melodies écrits de façon parfaitement correcte (accents et titres compris) qui devaient avoir eu une consonance fort étrangère pour la serveuse qui en avait été chargée; le papier, ça et là déjà jauni, les écritures pâlies et difficiles à déchiffrer parfois recouvertes d’autres plaquettes avec un autre titre, mais qu’on devinait à travers celles-ci. (123-124)

I thought of the passage of time and music as a marker of memory: the machine covered with handwritten and typed song titles, the different styles revealing the trace of the hand and the machine; how each tune can evoke specific memories long buried, how melodies can unlock thought.

 

A mid-20th-century 24-disc Wurlitzer jukebox. Photographed at "The Stables" behind Full Throttle Bottles, Georgetown, Seattle, Washington on March 8, 2008. Photo by Joe Mabel

 

Handke wrote an essay on a loosely focused theme – the jukebox – but this music-machine was just the metastructure to map out a larger reflection on many other, sometimes unrelated, subjects. Le fil conducteur. In a similar fashion, I chose the tongue rug to “store” and structure my reflections. Like the jukebox the rug is made up of ce méli-mélo d’écriture à la machine et à la main with its mish-mash of writing all assembled in the blog structure. The individual tongues — each touching on different themes through key words or tags – are loosely assembled into the larger form.

This exploratory process lasted for a long period of time as I drew my pathmap in space — cycling to the genealogical and geographic waypoints. It was also time to flesh out ideas, to “craft” the tongue rug. I had come to the conclusion that I needed “objectness” after working virtually for so long. Concretization that would help bring the project to a close.

I may have found that very object: a pamphlet from early 20th century America. I had come across a copyright entry under the name of Joseph Angerbauer in the US Library of Congress. Since Joseph’s son, Joseph Henry, ran a coffee and tea company with his own son Joseph Junior, I thought at first that they had patented some sort of coffee brewing method.

Turns out the copyrighted material was actually a publication. I stumbled upon the title in a collection of Socialist Labour pamphlets on the Florida Atlantic University website: “1,700 items including trade union recruitment pamphlets, war effort pamphlets from both World Wars, economic analysis and commentary from late 19th through mid-20th century U.S. and Europe.” The International Institute of Social History in the Netherlands also referenced the pamphlet. The IISH conducts research and collects data on the global history of labour, workers, and labour relations.

In 1908, my great great grandfather, Joseph Angerbauer, published the pamphlet Tischlein, Deck Dich für Alle! Eine Betrachtung with Selbstverlage Press. I managed to find a badly battered copy online; within a week I was holding the weathered publication in my hands. The brown pages literally crumbled at the touch so I ordered archival sleeves to store them safely. I scanned each delicate page, putting them all up online in Pinterest in the hopes that someone might have information on the content. The problem is, I don’t speak or read German.

I believe Tischlein, Deck Dich für Alle! Eine Betrachtung can be translated as “Wishing-Table, for you all! A consideration” or “Ritual of Refreshment for all! An examination.” At first, “Wishing-Table” seemed like an odd choice of words? Until I came across one of the Brothers Grimm tales: Tischchendeckdich, Goldesel und Knüppel aus dem Sack or “The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack” (translated by Margaret Hunt, Grimm's Household Tales, 1884. Volume 1. No. 36). In the story, the wishing-table is a magic object. When the owner of the table says “Little table, cover thyself”, the table sets itself, its surface covered with the most exquisite dishes.

I will attempt to transcribe the text myself though eventually I will need to consult a native German speaker. Apart from my linguistic deficiencies, the text was printed in Gothic script, whose origins can be traced back to 11th century France. I was surprised to learn that it was not a simple decorative element, but more of a “graphic accident” due to the rising cost of parchment. The unique styling of the letter was an economical way to squish the letters together and use less pages.

 

Modèles d’alphabets. Gothique (2011), René H. Munsch

 

Most of the letters look familiar safe for a few variations. The long s is very similar to the f, while the round r is confusing. The decorative upper case letters are often so ornate that they are unrecognizable as actual letters. It will be a long process but I am excited to start deciphering the words. I like mysteries.

I started with the Tongue Rug (as a means for reflection on place and origins) only to end up with a 104-year old pamphlet whose meaning is as of yet unclear. Is it the object that I was looking for that has signaled the end of the project – the end of the search?

Or am I met with even more questions? Joseph Angerbauer was listed as a labourer in census records and city directories. What compelled him to publish this work let alone write it? Selbstverlage Press was situated in West Norwood, New Jersey, less than an hour’s drive away from Plainfield, his residence. West Norwood is also in close proximity to Englewood, which was the site of the Helicon Home colony, an experimental socialist commune established by Upton Sinclair and others in 1906. Lawrence Kaplan's article, A utopia during the progressive era: the helicon home colony 1906-1907 (American Studies, Vol 25, No. 2: Fall 1984), is a fascinating portrayal of the Progressive era intellectuals and their utopic ideals on child care, homemaking and women's rights of that time. Was Joseph in any way aware of this commune? Was he associated with any socialist parties in New Jersey?

It is through the transcribing and translating process that I might uncover answers.

In terms of genealogy, it is incredibly satisfying (and moving) to hold something in my hands that dates from four generations back. It is like a line tracing back through my past, a connection to an ancestor. Thinking about the Tongue Rug project, I was trying to emulate this process conceptually by tracing my passage in the Québec landscape to various bodies of water with my family names...

 

Cover	Page 02	Page 03
Page 04	Page 05	Page 06
Page 1	Page 2	Page 3
Page 4	Page 5	Page 6
Page 7	Page 8	Page 9
Page 10	Page 11	Page 12
Page 13	Page 14	Page 15
Page 16	Page 17	Page 18
Page 19	Page 20	Page 21
Page 22	Page 23	Page 24
Page 25	Page 26	Page 27
Page 28

via Tongue Rug on Pinterest

____

Angerbauer, J. (1908). Tischlein, deck dich für alle! Eine Betrachtung. West Norwood: Selbstverlag.

 

Process: Artistic fieldwork

As my work is process-based and research-based, with projects often stretched over years, I would situate my art practice as “a kind of artistic fieldwork”, a term coined by Rachel Wetzler in an article in Rhizome (1) about artists Ellie Ga, Sara Jordenö and Simon Fujiwara: “rather than conceiving of their work as a physical entity, with a particular, fixed form, it is instead versatile and open-ended.”

It is the Web itself that is my main material for artistic exploration.

“Dans son oeuvre numérique Web Tapis à langues, inspiré du sladdakavring, une sorte de courtepointe suédoise formée de langues feutrées qui se chevauchent, elle tisse des icônes virtuels. Il peut s’agir de mots ou de lieux géographiques. L’ordinateur devient en quelque sorte une nouvelle matrice comme le métier à tisser à l’origine.(2)”

Jean De Julio-Paquin understood how the computer, or rather the network, is the matrix of my “Tongue Rug” project. The virtual sladdakavring (Swedish for Tongue Rug) is made up of the network of associations and communications between software, social media tools, platforms, languages, etc. Conceptually speaking, it is these very networks that act as the threads that link the multiple tongues in the larger tongue rug.

As it is time-based, I’ve worked on the Tongue Rug project over the last decade. I cycled to a number of geographical and genealogical waypoints throughout Québec and documented various lakes, rivers and streams, which were then archived in YouTube and Google Maps. The tongue rug itself was effectively parcelled off into the Web. Each tongue of the Tongue Rug corresponded to a specific geographical waypoint (body of water), a genealogical name (toponymy), a blog tag, and a Twitter #hashtag, which directed the conversation thread that was displayed in real-time on my website.

I invited the public (in French and in English) to contribute to the sladdakavring by way of a blog, Twitter and Pinterest. The use of social media to gather information was an experiment in crowdsourcing along the lines of “cultural participation” as defined by Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard (3).

The tongue rug then becomes like a latent, virtual entity dependent on the participation of the public (4). I asked people to write a tweet about a body of water, or a longer story through an on-line form. These micro-texts would merge with my own blog postings and tweets to make a larger metanarrative on landscape, place and memory.

 

 

The first experiment took place at the Maison de Culture Marie-Uguay; my “Tongue Rug” project was part of the group show Reflets V. This provided me with the opportunity to meet with the public and talk about my project in person. Gathering with people around the computer created a sort of open workshop: I could navigate with the user online and provide contextual information. At the same time, I could demystify social media tools. I ended up collecting a smattering of stories. With 15 contributions, it could not really be called crowdsourcing. Still it was the start of something as I realized that the face-to-face encounter is a vital part of the project.

 

 

While the potential of participation is inherent to the piece, I need to engage with the public in a physical situation in order to stimulate the best exchanges. I’ve applied to a few festivals to do a few more experiments with the Tongue Rug project. This time I envision the meeting with the public in an installation setting; one that compells people to sit down for a bit and talk.

 

Notes

1. The Art of Fieldwork, Rachel Wetzler, Rhizome, February 2, 2012
2. Jean De Julio-Paquin, text in the catalogue for Reflets V, Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay, april 2011
3. American researcher Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard works for the firm WolfBrown who conducted the study Getting In On The Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation. « Engagez-vous... dans l'art: Une étude recense différents degrés de la participation culturelle », Le Devoir, November 1, 2011
4. « Œuvre en processus pour public en développement, Stéphanie Lagueux et Julie Lapalme » (2003). Marie-Christiane Mathieu, Espace Sculpture, Montréal, Spring 2003, p. 49-50.

Process: Pinning tongues

Been experimenting with Pinterest (Pin + interest) as it is in the spirit of the tongue rug. A bulletin board with disparate pins as a sort of sladdakavring: a way of rapidly gathering links, images and videos and sharing these collections with other users.

  

Though it is being used for emarketing, promoting brands and products, more personal archives are being developed. The latter intrigues me: what do people judge worthwhile enough to pin? Over time, what will this interface reveal to us about what society deemed important?

  

Process: Coquille Sladdakavring

 

Was in the mood to doodle. Found an old book cover with intriguing fluid shapes. The effect is very shell-like with its overlapping mussels: Coquille Sladdakavring. Doodling, like sewing, and like cycling long distances now that I think of it, both closes off the world somewhat and opens up an internal space of reflection. Thought of an intriguing experiment. Embed QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) in the tongue rug. Each code on the tongue would easily call up the blog tongue. Will have to play...

Process: Broche à foin

 

Felt like I was making a sketch but with fabric. In the end, this tongue rug is a simple representation of time spent cycling to various bodies of water over the last decade. Both the creative process and the cycling trips were done in a broche à foin manner: unorganised, confused and largely improvised.

 

Progress: July 23, 2011

 

Process: The Vulgar Tongue

My website was used as a source for the expression “tongue rug” on Termium Plus: La banque de données terminologiques et linguistiques du gouvernement du Canada.

Contexte: Le tapis à langues [...] fabriqué de morceaux de feutre ... au Québec et en Suède est similaire à une courtepointe mais formé de langues qui se chevauchent, souvent brodés avec des icônes symboliques. (Cuckoo Grafik)

I was happy to see this inclusion; that the humble rug was given a little recognition despite what Gordon Campbell describes as its utilitarian nature in The Grove Encyclopaedia of Decorative Arts (2006): "Pieces of fabric, cut with one end rounded, were sewn to a heavy foundation. Starting at the outside edge, each row of ‘tongues’ slightly overlapped the previous one, like tiles on a roof, until the centre was reached. Sometimes the ‘tongues’ were decorated with button-hole stitches." (298) Not sure I agree with the term? Though the object is useful in its capacity to recycle discarded materials, can it not also be an object of beauty ?

Out of curiosity, I searched Termium for other expressions: tongue of air (langue d’air); tongue on a buckle (ardillon); tongue in cheek (pince-sans-rire); tongue clucking (claquement de langue); tongue shaped (linguiforme); tongue and slot fixing (fermeture mâle et femelle); tongue twister (virelangue); and tongue land (langue de terre).

Though I had heard the term langue de terre before, I was not familiar with "tongue land". Looking over my maps, it is the perfect term for certain land formations in Quebec. The Legault Peninsula / Presqu’Île des Legaults (LE-8) does ressemble an emerald tongue jutting out into the water of the Outaouais. Other agricultural areas, such as Angers Bridge (A-9) in Sainte-Marie-Madelaine, Montérégie, Québec, recall the patchwork rug by the ordering of their tongue-like, long narrow strips of land, a result of the seigneurial system that was introduced to Nouvelle France in 1627.

 

View Tongue A-9 in a larger map Remnants of the seigneurial system can be seen today in maps and satellite imagery of Quebec, with the characteristic "long lot" (ribbon farm) land system still forming the basic shape of current farm fields and clearings, as well as being reflected in the historic county boundaries along the St. Lawrence River. (Wikipedia)

I also found older expressions in the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence by Francis Grose, which was first published in 1785 as the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Grose. The first edition contained words that were tamed down or edited out in the latter edition. I was able to read both editions online in digitized format (Google), transcribed (Gutenberg Project) and even indexed by keyword.

 

British Library (Learning: Dictionaries and meanings) TONGUE enough for two sets of teeth: said of a talkative person. As old as my TONGUE, and a little older than my teeth; a dovetail in answer to the question, How old are you? TONGUE pad; a scold, or nimble-tongued person. It is all RUG; it is all right and safe, the game is secure. Asleep. The whole gill is safe at RUG; the people of the house are fast asleep.

Throughout the dictionary, the Cant Language is a prevalent term, one that I had not encountered before.

“The Vulgar Tongue consists of two parts; the first is the Cant Language, called sometimes Pedlar’s French, or St. Giles’s Greek; the second, those Burlesque Phrases, Quaint Allusion, and Nick-names for persons, things and places, which from long uninterrupted usage are made classical by prescription.”
— Preface, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785)

 

French Canadian wood carving The tongue rug, often no bigger than a doormat, was traditionally displayed in the parlour.

 

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines “cant” as a language peculiar to a class, profession or sect; to speak jargon. It’s earlier meaning was of a musical nature, one of intonation and of beggar’s whining, probably from the Anglo-Norman cant, song, singing, from canter, to sing, from Latin cantre. In The Vulgar Tongue, cant is defined in a highly negative way: a CANT is defined as “ an hypocrite, a double tongue pallavering fellow” while CANT language is also known as GIBBERISH, that is, Pedlar’s French or St. Giles’s Greek. CANTERS, or THE CANTING CREW is defined as "thieves, beggars, and gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo".

The dictionary is rife with words of foreign origins , such as CHAPERON, CURTEZAN, CURMUDGEON (“a covetous old fellow, derived according to some, from the French term coeur méchant”), FOGEY ("Old Fogey. A nickname for an invalid soldier: derived from the French word fougeux, fierce or fiery"), and SAUNTERER (an idle, lounging fellow, said to be derived from the French sans terre), to name just a few. At the same time, the French language is considered “an outlandish lingo, a foreign tongue; the parlezvous lingo”. E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) defines “Pedlar’s French” as the slang of the Romany folk. He explains that the word Frenchman was a synonym of foreigner. Anyone who could not speak English was labeled so.

Slang is a vernacular vocabulary that is not generally acceptable in formal usage and can included mundane terms (rain check) to obscure sexual practices. For instance, the dictionary reveals that TWIDDLE DIDDLES is slang for testicles.

“We need not descant on the dangerous impressions that are made on the female mind, by the remarks that fall incidentally from the lips of the brother or servants of a family; and we have before observed, that improper topics can with our assistance be discussed, even before the ladies, without raising a blush on the cheek of modesty. It is impossible that a female should understand the meaning of TWIDDLE DIDDLES or rise from tablet at the mention of BUCKINGER'S BOOT. — Preface, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811)

Much of the vernacular vocabulary reflects the racism and prejudices of that time, let alone misogynist sentiments. Many expressions seemed to be used to put someone in their place, to assign them to their correct station in life.

PISS-PROUD. Having a false erection. That old fellow thought he had an erection, but his - was only piss-proud; said of any old fellow who marries a young wife

Other words were used in the same way, to silence. The tongue is invariable female.

CHATTER BOX. One whose tongue runs twelve score to the dozen, a chattering man or woman.
CLACK, a tongue, chiefly applied to women, a simile drawn from the clack of a water mill.
GAB, or GOB, the mouth; gift of the gab, a facility of speech, eloquence, nimble tongued; to blow the gab, to confess, or peach.
GLIB, smooth, slippery; glib tongued, talkative.
POTATO TRAP; the mouth; shut your potato trap, and give your tongue a holiday, i.e. be silent.
PRITTLE PRATTLE, insignificant talk, generally applied to women and children.
QUAIL PIPE, a woman’s tongue.
RED RAG, the tongue; shut up your potatoe trap, and give your red rag a holiday, i.e. shut up your mouth and let your tongue rest […]
TITTLE TATTLE, idle discourse, scandal, women’s talk, or small talk
BONE BOX. The mouth. Shut your bone box; shut your mouth.

Many words such as dowdy and drab, at one time harsh judgments of women, have had their meaning watered down in today’s usage. Other words that were once considered slang have been incorporated into general use such as agog, blab, blast, blubber, bouncer, brat, brazen-faced, budge, buff, carouse, chap, chubby, clan, clout, coax, crone, disgruntled, elbow grease, equipt, eves dropper, feint, fidgets, fumble, gawkey, gingerly, glum, grub, hodge podge, jowl, lingo, lush, pimp, pommel, puny, quandary, quota, rigmarole, scamper, scarce, scoundrel, scraggy, seedy, sham, slang, slouch, smut, smirk, sneering, snicker, snivel, spree, swig, tipsey, wheedle, yelp, etc. However, the meaning of many of these words has shifted with time.

Though of course Twitter took its name from an existing word for bird chatter, it is nonetheless eery to stumble upon such a contemporary word in the world of social media in a dictionary that is more than 200 years old.

TWITTER, all in a twitter, in a fright; twittering is also the note of some small birds, such as the robin, etc.

What sort of slang and vernacular vocabulary will social media generate for future dictionaries?

Process: Stitching Time

 

Over the summer months, I’ve been stitching tongues on cotton and linen with alpaca wool. I have never had particularly strong sewing skills so it is more of an idea of a tongue rug. Nonetheless, I enjoy the process. This time consuming activity leaves room for recollection, for meditation.

My decision to use words as icons was a good one. While numbering the tongues did not particularly help stir up memories, a few choice words for a waypoint  (lucie, gravel, bikinis, camero, heather) invariably brings up the experience like it was yesterday — even 10 years after the first bike trip (LE-3). I use the word experience because not only do I remember the physical environment of this trip  — how it was hot and I was annoyed by the flies, how the road was gravely in parts, how there was not much to look at as houses were few and far between — I can also recall my emotional state. I clearly remember my inner thoughts while cycling to my destination: my bruised ego at having to cycle with an old bike with a rusty, rattling chain; the anxiety about the thought that I was going the wrong way; the disappointment that the lake in question was a tourist destination once I reached Lac Legault. I can even remember the line I traced on the map by my passage. More of a scribble than an exact cartographic representation. Ten years from now when I look at the tongues, will the word-icons trigger the same memories?

Did traditional tongue rugs hold similar memories through iconic decoration or the choice of materials (the discarded clothing of loved ones for instance)? In comparison, my tongue rug seems to be more of a template, a blueprint; there is no meaning in the choice of materials nor is there any (sadly) skill or craftsmanship in its making. It is more about the time spent stitching the pieces; the hours spent reflecting on time and place.

 

Process: Griffintown sladdakavring

UNESCO designated April 18th as the International Day for Monuments and Sites in 1983. Heritage Montreal, in collaboration with ICOMOS Canada, brought together several partners to highlight this year’s theme, the Cultural heritage of water in Montreal. Parks Canada put on a conference about the Lachine Canal National Historic Site at Brasseurs de Montréal. While on the guided tour of the canal and its basins, admittedly a cold and wet experience as it rained buckets the entire time, I discovered that The Canada Jute Company used to occupy the building situated at 1744 William Street, which was built in 1889. Specializing in the making of industrial bags in jute and cotton, The Canada Jute Co. was incorporated in 1882 and amalgamated into The Canadian Bag Company in the 1900s.

The proximity of the Ogilvie Flour Mill on rue des Seigneurs (built in 1890, and later occupied by Montreal Woolen Mills), prompted me to wonder if Canada Jute Co. provided the mill with jute bags for its flour and middling products? A material that is considered a waste product along with the bran, middlings or weatlings (in French, remoulage or issues), is obtained in the commercial wheat milling process and was commonly used to feed livestock as a high-protein supplement.

 

Lake of the Woods Tongue Rug, c. 1930 Reverse view of the burlap bags from Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd.

 

At first, I wondered if there was a Griffintown connection to my sladdakavring? Did The Canadian Bag Company fabricate the middling bag that is stitched on the back of my tongue rug? Upon further investigation, I realized that it is more plausible that the maker of the rug simply lived on a farm or maintained a small stable on their property because Ogilvie Flour Mills only bought Lake of the Woods Milling Company in 1954, while the tongue rug is dated around 1930. It will be difficult to determine the origin of the rug given that middlings were sold all over Canada and the United States to feed livestock.

When I first settled down in the Sud-Ouest in 2007, I walked the Griffintown and Point St. Charles Heritage Trail to explore the area. Hailing from an industrial city in Northern Ontario, I've always appreciated the singular beauty of 19th & early 20th century industrial architecture. I’ve been walking and biking through Griffintown on a daily basis as I started working at the Board of Montreal Museums Directors.

 

 

Curious about the area's architecture, I consulted McGill University's Industrial Architecture of Montreal website. The BMMD building situated at 333 Peel and William was once the garage of the William Dow Brewery Co., built in 1929 by the architect Louis Auguste Amos.

 

Engraving: Commercial trademark of William Dow & Company, Montreal, India pale Ale John Henry Walker (1831-1899) © McCord Museum

 

I also recently stumbled upon a heritage study of 55 buildings in Griffintown — residential housing, institutional, commercial and industrial buildings — on the Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown website. Planification détaillée du secteur Griffintown: analyse du cadre bâti was produced by the consulting firm Patri-Arch (Martin Dubois and Catherine Séguin with David B. Hanna and Atelier B.R.I.C.) for the Bureau du patrimoine de la toponymie et de l’expertise du Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et du patrimoine for the City of Montreal in March 28, 2007. I decided to create a map using the study’s heritage sites as a starting point, in order to find my bearings while on my meanderings to and from work.

 

View Griffintown Heritage Buildings in a larger map

 

It was fascinating to see the transformations over time: from the photos taken during the study's 2006-2007 time period, to the Google Street View photos taken in 2009, to seeing the actual sites now, two years later, on my daily walks. I was frankly relieved to see that all the sites were still in existence with all the construction sites in the area. One of the study's suggestions was to design a series of informational plaques for these heritage buildings, a timely idea especially with all the recent real estate developments; from the well-known landmarks to the more modest dwellings, it is important to remind the passer-by of the varied history of this neighbourhood. The study certainly opened my eyes to the area’s industrial past and the key historical figures who helped shape the community.

 

Griffintown Police Station no 7, The Griffintown Tour by G. Scott MacLeod, 2001

 

I also found G. Scott MacLeod's website The Griffintown Tour, which showcases a series of drawings of key sites in Griffintown, namely Police Station no 7 situated at 219 Young Street. Built in 1875, it is now used as a rehearsal space for the Centaur Theatre Company. I recently enjoyed a guided tour of the building. Urban Occupations Urbaines, in collaboration with the Centaur Theatre and Heritage Montreal presented Alison Loader's Ghosts in the Machine, an inquiry into the death of Mary Gallagher. I was impressed on many levels by this work.

I found the site-specific nature of her work a key component to the multimedia installation. The historical signification of the building for the Irish population at the time and the "residue" of a 135-year-old space added to the experience: the creaking of the floorboards, the smells and the general atmosphere. I appreciated the fact that there were multiple entry points, that is, each person would have a different experience based on their vantage point of the projections; each person, depending on when they entered the installation, would experience the narrative differently as there was no beginning nor end to the audio loops. One was free to creep up to see an image on the cylinder, to walk around the distorted projections or to simply sit down and listen. The imagination of the visitor — his or her ability to fill in the gaps — is another important component of this piece. The image of a nude figure with an axe for example, becomes a skewed image of some sort of animal galloping in a monstrous manner. Closer investigation is needed to determine what one is looking at or what one is hearing as the audio of the three circular areas overlap. The piece is interactive in that it demands work; visitors need to spend time with the installation to put together the pieces, to reassemble the bits of information that they are hearing and seeing. This process of reconstitution mirrors the multiple points of view at the time on the crime (the beheading of Mary Gallagher) as well as the societal biases around women and class that came to corrupt the justice process in finding her killer.

It would be interesting to have a permanent exhibition of Lauder's work in Griffintown much like the Silophone project in the Old Port.