Goteborgs Internationella Konstbiennal
Installation on public transport Tram 09
June- September 2001
Catalogue publication
Participating artists: Gunilla Bandolin, Sean Bluechel, Daniel Buren, Agnes Denes, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Tom Hunter, Dan Perjovschi, Ragna Robertsdottir, Clara Ursitti
My work has always explored the relationship between sound and architectural space and the spaces in between information, places, history, relationships, the places where one has to fill in the missing parts to complete the picture. This has led to a fascination with the subtle traces that people and their actions leave behind, the ‘ghosts’ of their presence and the source of how their environment affects their ability to remember and recall. ‘Imagined Departures’ explores the environment of commuting and the visions we each explore in our imaginations throughout the journey, seeking out the stories beneath the surface, sampling the memories and fantasies of others in a public space, taking the most private moments and thrusting them into the public sphere as a form of exploration and revelation.
Having advertised a simple question in freely distributed newspaper The Metro:"What do you dream about as you travel on this tram? Do you wish you were elsewhere? You were someone else? Where you will be next week? Next year? In ten years time?"
I collated the answers and recorded them with an anonymous male and female voice, in both Swedish and English. Working with Spårvägen, the tram company, these imagined narratives, dreams and desires can be heard broadcast across the public speaker system as you board the tram and travel across the city on Tram No.9
With no narrative drive or direction, the words themselves will conjure up the places and ideas that people travel to in their imaginations, their daydreams accompanied by a simulated soundscape to conjure up the image of this imagined space. These poignant moments, insignificant in isolation, will absord their way through accumulation into ones imagination.
