Anna Barham Creates Virtual Chinese Whispers Game At The ICA

Anna Barham

The Multi-media artist Anna Barham will encourage visitors at the ICA Studio to participate in an elaborate game of Chinese Whispers. The week-long show is part of the dynamic exhibitions programme fig-2, which presents 50 exhibitions in 50 weeks for the duration of 2015.

Using a speech-to-text programme, individuals will be invited to read from a piece of prose into a microphone attached to a computer, which will imperfectly record what they say. Playing on the fallible nature of dictation programmes, and the varying accents and nuances of individual voices, the text will morph over the course of the week. Every day different interpretations generated the previous day will be provided to each visitor to choose from and to add a new translation of the text by voicing their selected piece. In so doing, Barham addresses the unruly potential of meaning and the active role of the viewer / reader by setting up complex feedback loops between human and computer processes.

Anna Barham (born 1974, UK) lives and works in London. She studied Philosophy and Maths at Cambridge University (1992 – 1995) before going on to study Fine Art at the Slade (1997 – 2001). Select recent solo exhibitions include: Suppose I call a man a horse or a horse a man, Site Gallery, Sheffield (2013); a solo presentation with Arcade at Frieze London (2012); White City and an Art on the Underground Commission for White City Station, London (2012); Not quite tonight jellylike, Arcade, London (2013) and Liquid, Liquid, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm (2015). Select group exhibitions include: Convention T, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2014); Platform: In the making, Site Gallery, Sheffield (2013); Words To Be Spoken Aloud, Turner Contemporary, Margate (2013); Revolver, part II, Matt’s Gallery, London (2012); Love in a Cold Climate, S1 Artspace, Sheffield (2013); What’s Love Got to Do with It?, Hayward Project Space, London (2014) and Nouveau Festival, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015). 

Images: Breath mark, 2015  UV print on holographic paper SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device), 2015 UV print on holographic paper, courtesy Anna Barham and Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm

fig-2 30/50 Anna Barham 28 July – 2 August 2015: 11am – 6pm  ICA Studio in association with Outset

Opening reception: Monday 27 July, 6 – 8pm

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