Early in 2009 I discovered the work of iri5 (aka Erika Iris Simmons -> link). I love the concept of her “Ghost in the Machine” series, where she takes cassette tapes (remember those, anyone?) by a certain artist to create a portrait of ouf that tape.

Here is an example of John Lennon, selected because of its landscape format, not because it’s my favourite, to be honest:

Have a look at her flickr set to see more examples (-> link). Ian Curtis from Joy Division is an awesome piece!

I contacted iri5 to ask her if she would be up for a collaboration.

We agreed that:

1. Since she doesn’t know me and has never seen a photo of me, she wouldn’t research me online.

2. I would write a few pieces and record them on cassette and then send her that tape (it turned out to be 17 minutes).

3. She would listen to that tape and, if she decided to go ahead with the project, to create a piece based only on my voice and the content of the pieces I had recorded.

Here is the result:

It arrived in a large box, filled with vintage book pages that corresponded to the pieces I had written, some where folded into small petals. And there was an amulet with a small scroll of paper with a writing of her own + a very beautiful, handwritten letter.

The portrait is created from the “data rich” tape, as iri5 put it, the unrecorded tape being left in the case (actually, it’s on the right).

Yes, the portrait doesn’t look very much like me, but that’s not the point. The point is that she only had my voice and language to go by. So it’s a portrait based on emotion & imagination, rather than on physiognomy. I believe that the memory of how people look gets transformed over time by what one feels for them or thinks of them.

I simply love this piece.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am and is filed under The Collection.