Vito Acconci
Air Time
Air Time
1973
Scattered through the exhibition-space are seven "stations": each consists of a white box with a white stool beside it – inside each box is an audiotape loop, the box is a radio station – the sound skips from box to box, winding through the space.
Each "radio program" is in my voice, addressed to viewers: I'm telling them stories – it's snowing, you're in the mountains, you're on a deserted pier, the waves are beating against the shore, I'm transporting you out of here so I can be atone with her…
Off to the side of the exhibition-space, there's a blinking red light over the door to a small closet. In the middle of the exhibition-space, there's a TV monitor placed overhead on the edge of a free-standing wall. Three times a day, I'm inside the closet for a "recording session"; viewers can see me and hear me outside, on the TV monitor.
I'm facing a mirror: not to see myself, exactly, but to see myself the way "you" have seen me – you, who I lived with for four years, until recently – I'm recreating incidents in our life together – I want to see how ugly I am with you…
I need viewers to be there; I need viewers to see how I've been with you; once they see it, then I can't deny it: I have to come to terms with it, I have to realize that that's the way I am with you, and there's nothing I can do about it – the only way to change it is to leave you for good.
Vito Acconci, 2001.
Each "radio program" is in my voice, addressed to viewers: I'm telling them stories – it's snowing, you're in the mountains, you're on a deserted pier, the waves are beating against the shore, I'm transporting you out of here so I can be atone with her…
Off to the side of the exhibition-space, there's a blinking red light over the door to a small closet. In the middle of the exhibition-space, there's a TV monitor placed overhead on the edge of a free-standing wall. Three times a day, I'm inside the closet for a "recording session"; viewers can see me and hear me outside, on the TV monitor.
I'm facing a mirror: not to see myself, exactly, but to see myself the way "you" have seen me – you, who I lived with for four years, until recently – I'm recreating incidents in our life together – I want to see how ugly I am with you…
I need viewers to be there; I need viewers to see how I've been with you; once they see it, then I can't deny it: I have to come to terms with it, I have to realize that that's the way I am with you, and there's nothing I can do about it – the only way to change it is to leave you for good.
Vito Acconci, 2001.
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