My first use of small scale digital sound recording devices, this work answered the question "what would the walls say if they could talk?" Situated in a jail cell at the Old Los Angeles City Jail, small digital sound devices play looping messages to those who listened to the ears embedded in the concrete walls.

The message: "money, money, money" was recorded into the sound chip recorders by "speaking the word on the in-breath, until failure". From further away the overlay of the three separate recordings was like an indiscernible chant whose mystic sound was contradicted by closer interaction.

 

Concrete, polyester resin, paint, ISD voice chip.