The Muriel Lake Incident, 1999

Note: Please put a pair of headphones on and press the button.

Duration: 5 minutes

Actors: Jim Manis, George Bures Miller, Janet Cardiff
Singer:  Andonio Dalgas
Construction: Robyn Moody, Chairs by Amy and Grant.

The visitor stands in front of a large wooden box looking through a rectangular opening to see a miniature model of a cinema with grey, empty rows of seats, and a small projection screen onto which a film is being projected. Listening on a pair of headphones they hear the 3-dimentional (binaural) sounds of the film, a woman next to them talking and eating popcorn and a surprise ending including a gunshot and a frightened audience.

The Muriel Lake Incident was originally created for the Istanbul Biennial (curated by Paolo Colombo). It was exhibited in the inaugural exhibition at The Tate Modern in London, is in The Sandretto Collection, Italy, as well as The Naomi Milgrom Collection, Australia.

Excerpt below from an article in The New York Times, Aug. 8, 2000

….But the voice followed me to London. I was wandering around the Tate Modern and had almost finished seeing an exhibition of installation art, ”Between Cinema and a Hard Place.” People were standing around watching a miniature movie in a puppet-size theater. They were motioning to their friends, ”You’ve got to see this.” What was the big deal? I picked up some headphones. ”The Muriel Lake Incident” was playing.

”Is there any popcorn left?” a familiar voice whispered in my ear. Soon I could hear a woman next to me munching popcorn, quietly but audibly. How rude! I looked over. No one was there. The whisper started again: ”This isn’t the film I thought it was. I thought it was supposed to be directed by Orson Welles.” The voice disappeared, and shots rang out. The people next to me jumped, then smiled sheepishly at their friends.

The voice belonged to Janet Cardiff, an artist from Lethbridge, Alberta, and it had me snared. When I learned that the voice could be heard in Whitechapel, the East London neighborhood where Jack the Ripper did his dirty work, I went. At the Whitechapel Library I exchanged my credit card for ”The Missing Voice (Case Study B)”: a pair of headphones, a Discman and a map of the neighborhood….

From ARTS ABROAD; An Artist Who Travels With You (on Tape, That Is) By Sarah Boxer