Handphone Table

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Large
Courtesy the artist

In Handphone Table, visitors are invited to perceive sounds through the bones of their arms. Laurie Anderson wired up a normal table in such a way that, when visitors placed their elbows in the depressions on the tabletop and covered their ears with their hands, they could hear sound through their bodies. Technically, this effect is created by conducting amplified audiotape sounds that have been transformed into impulses to four screws that are embedded in the hollows of the tabletop. The hollows thus act as loudspeakers. The bones in our bodies, for their part, have a porous structure that makes them good conductors of sound. With Handphone Table, Anderson creates an intimate version of her idea of space-related music that should be felt as well as heard. The work was inspired by an experience the artist had when she rested her head on her hands while using an electric typewriter.



 

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