Total Running Time, Beall Center for Art + Technology, UC Irvine, September 30, 2023 - January 13, 2024
Pulses, the ambient sound that pervades the room, is a 15-minute audio recording that runs on a loop with a one-minute silence between each iteration.
Audio sources include a telephone ringing, a mechanical ventilator, a prison telecommunication disclosure announcement, an acapella version of “Unchained Melody,” a switchboard at a call center, and vocal elocution exercises. The sounds are produced through surface transducers mounted from within the gallery walls. A sonic description and video description is included in the artist's documentation.
The sonic description video presented here is also on view at http://beallcenter.uci.edu/totalrunningtime (coming soon).
[silence and stillness]
[blippy ringtone]
[blippy ringtone]
[blippy ringtone, line connects]
PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have a call from the state correctional institution with a call from an incarcerated human being.
to accept this free call, press 1.
to refuse this free call, press 2. [a slight crackle on the line]
if you would like to permanently block your number from receiving calls from this facility, press 6. [light crackle and static]
[phone touch tone with a clipped “oh”]
[background static hisses steadily as an improvised, syncopated melody emerges from everyday sounds listed below]
[tinkering with a small bell] clipped “oh”
[door hinge creaks and plinks] clipped “oh”
[various clinks and plinks interspersed with clipped “oh” and more clacks and taps]
[footsteps in clacky shoes mixes into the music of clicks, clacks, clipped “oh,” and taps]
[sounds above begin to align, forming a steadier rhythm, all continue with the addition of more]
[tiny bell rings]
[steps and clicks and clinks continue]
[distant motor of a power chair whirs and buzzes]
clipped “oh” reverberates
[tiny bell, power chair whines, steps, and clicks continue]
[power chair whir grows louder as clicks and taps and plinks and clipped “oh” and bell happen more rhythmically, closer to each other, speeding up until finally...]
PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.
this call is subject to recording and monitoring.
[static on the line]
[static continues as a melody like an emergency siren emerges out of the shadows, howling and whining in the distance, warbling until it fades away, leaving only static]
[melody returns, but this time in a human voice, crystalline and pure] Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
[melody above continues as harmonizing voices add-in, no instruments]
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooHooOooooooooh
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH Oh,
Oh,
♪ I've hungered for your touch (oh, my love)
♪ A long, lonely time (oh, my love)
[distant siren voice in and out] ♪ Time goes by so slowly (need your love)
♪ Oh (oh, my darling)
♪ And time can do so much (need your love) ♪ Are you still mine?
♪ I need your loooooove (time)
♪ I neeeeeeed your love (time)
♪ God speed your love to me (goes by so slowly) ♪ my love
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH
♪ my love (still miiiiiiiiine)
♪ Lonely rivers flow (river flow, river flow)
♪ I need your love
♪ To the sea, (to the sea, to the sea, to the sea) to the sea
♪ I need your love
♪ To the open arms of the sea (the sea, the sea, the sea) ♪ my love
♪ Lonely rivers sigh (rivers sigh, rivers sigh)
♪ my love
♪ "Wait for me, (wait for me, wait for me, wait for me) wait for me
♪ I'll be coming hoooooooooooome, wait for me"
♪ My love
♪ OooooooooooooooOh, my love [static grows louder as voices soften] ♪ Ooooooooooooh, my love
♪ My looooooove
[hissing static louder and louder, interference, ring]
[crackle, squeak]
[a pattern of four light, bubbly pops plays again and again over the hiss of static for 2.25 minutes]
tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory
[pattern of four continues, pulling in new sounds now and again, sometimes becoming five]
[like creaking leather]
[like a distorted echoing pulse] tik tik tik tik
tik tik tik tik
[creaking leather, then the pulse, a pop, a breath]
tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik
[breathing – breathing] tik tik tik tik
tik tik tik tik
[volume ramps up, ring interference - white noise – electric]
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
[pattern continues, echoey, steady, the static rising and rising] tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss - vibratory
bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory
tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss – vibratory [staticky hiss ends]
PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.
this call is subject to recording and monitoring.
[the following will be a collage, starting with single sounds, building into dizzying layers of sound and voice]
[distant traffic]
[office telephone rings, pause, rings louder] [traffic driving through rain, home telephone rings]
Hello?
[office phone rings, a crackle, a dial tone as another phone is dialed in layers with the nearby passing cars and the office phone ringing again]
[street cleaner sweeps past, phones ring, dial tones ring out]
Hello?
Hello, operator.
[ringing, tones, sweeps, crackling, popping]
Would you like to place a call? Hold please.
[ringing, dial tones, a siren blasts through the ever-present rush of traffic]
Hello? Would you like to make a call? Hello?!
[ringing drowns out the voices, traffic is relentless, emergency vehicle
nears]
Would you like to make a call? Hello?!
[digital pulsing of a modem firing up, sirens, rings, traffic, dial tones]
[all begins to fade]
Can you please hold?
[signal beep tone]
DIGITAL EMPLOYEE SYNTHESIZED VOICE: I apologize, but I don’t think I can define care
[one interminable minutes of only static]
[beep]
DIGITAL EMPLOYEE SYNTHESIZED VOICE: care, moment and yard
[one interminable minute of only static]
[a quiet hiss, occasional little pop, a stillness]
[low-tone beep...beep...beep...]
[scrape-tone, scrape-tone...scrape-tone...scrape...]
[scrape] pa [tone]
[scrape] pa [tone reverberates]
[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...
[scrape, background hiss intensifies, voices speak almost all at once, collaged unevenly]
pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss]
pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss softens]
[and now 1.5 minutes of collage: layers of the recorded voices producing a jumpy, jolty version of the word “perfect” composed with the following sounds and syllables. The word comes out imperfectly every time but plays steadily as a heartbeat.]
p-tuh-
t
t
par
par
breath pah
pah-
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
[and on and on against a light whoosh of faraway traffic] pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect
[“perfect” vanishes]
[clicking, digital pulsing of a phone being dialed] [old phone receiver clanks into its cradle]
[old rotary Bell South telephone rings, its multi-tone brrrrriiiiiing reverberating as it fades] [pause]
[brrrrriiiiiing, reverberates, then fades]
[brrrrriiiiiing cut off by a click]
[receiver clunks into place]
PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have one minute left.
[the minute passes in stillness, just the air moving in the room, turned into a light hiss over speakerphone]
thank you for using Securus. [the line clicks as it’s cut]
the caller hung up.
goodbye.
[click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse]