Janet Cardiff
There is a sense of wonder and shock when events and scenes described on the CD coincidentally happen in the real physical world, as they often do. Cardiff's walks usually circle around the same themes- memories, displacement and desire.
Cardiff in effect creates virtual spaces anchored in reality. She takes her participants to the crossroads of fiction and reality, the actual and the virtual imagery come together in hypnotic and emotional intensity. The artist comments "I always appear as a voice in my work. Your thoughts are your own, establishing a mix between the private and the public".
Cardiff's works involve the conventions of cinema and science fiction and explore the complexity of subjectivity in today's highly technological world.
Ghost Machine: Three layers of reality interact in these walks: the spectator moving through the rooms, the modified image of the rooms on camera display, and the soundtrack guiding the visitor via headphones. In Ghost Machine the theatre itself becomes the narrative. When visitors taking the tour reach the stage curtain they become actors. They receive applause, and the myths and fears addressed are theirs as well. But the applause comes from a box behind the visitor that is clearly empty. At the end, you wake up as though you've been daydreaming or sleep walking.
I think that the intimacies between Janet's voice and the listener is vital to create an environment of trust and to make the walks work. I want to explore the balance between reality and fiction by altering the viewer's perception of themselves by showing them several altered live images of themselves via CCTV, and mixing them on a visual mixer.
