Gerard Byrne

b. 1969, Ireland

A conversation at the opening of ev+a 2004 between some other conversations. The conversation will be overheard by everyone, one person at a time. The conversation will be intimate, and at the same time generic. A film of sorts, without a camera.

The scenario involves two actors playing a couple. The actors will ‘attend’ the opening as regular visitors. They will, however, be miked, using radio microphones. Their conversation will be relayed using the mics to a receiver, where it will be monitored, recorded (as documentation), and, most importantly, relayed back to the crowd via a single set of radio headphones. The radio headphones will be passed among the crowd by a helper, as a sort of conspicuous communal pass-around. The actors will not use a script, but will improvise a conversation based on a number of ideas/parameters I will give them.

The conversation will take cues from a number of films: for example, the basic scenario – a couple walking and conversing in a crowded space – from The Conversation (Coppola); an aural schism between the lone headphone-wearing listener and the surrounding crowd – Wings of Desire (Wenders); and the citation of seemingly arbitrary objects from the spatial situation as an improvised script – the notice board in the final scene of The Usual Suspects.

A video camera will record the crowd from the balcony of the City Art Gallery. The camera will pick out faces, and seemingly search the crowd for the source of the conversation, without ever actually locating the specific couple. Subsequently, the conversation will be edited together with the footage of the crowd. The subsequent video material will be screened as a document of the event for the duration of the exhibition.

(Text: imagine limerick catalogue, 2004)