The Muttering Void (2023) – FESCH.TV

The Muttering Void (2023) & FESCH.TV:

In “The Muttering Void: Vacuum Cleaners and Trash Cans Unplugged” artists Gökay Atabek and Werner van der Zwan explore how vacuum cleaners and trashcans can be given a voice and relate to us humans, in a sonic fashion. Separately, both artists have worked extensively in the past with the animating and sonifying objects. Gökay Atabek explored the vacuum cleaner with the piece “16000 Watt” and Werner van der Zwan the trash can with “Talking Trash”. Together, they attempt to merge the vocabulary they have developed for these object within the context of a performance piece.
It is coded in our perception of reality that trash is something which disappear from our world. Vacuum cleaners and trash cans are examples of the black holes the trash disappears into, where it stays out of sight and out of mind. Obviously, trash never truly disappears. Instead it tends to haunt us, re-emerging in the strangest places; like the bits of micro-plastics in our blood vessels and the medicine in our drinking water . What if we try to see these black holes as actors within this exchange? With the piece, the artists explore how a voice can be given to these objects, so that we can relate to them almost as intermediaries, actively partaking in the journey of trash.