OctoTale

This piece consists of an eight ‘armed’ apparatus, and at the end of each arm there is a hand written postcard with keys, dentata, and bloodied fingerprints — each signed with a traditionally female name. Touching of the cards activates sound to be played from within the center hub — each arm triggers random, but different sounds from one another. The audio is of female voices speaking, some hurried and nervous, others terrified, some merely confused and curious. Activation of more than one card at a time can trigger entirely unique audio responses.

OctoTale explores participants’ willingness to engage with a work, even when that work has an unpleasant or uncomfortable aura. The use of touch and the necessity to move closer, in order to hear the audio, forces an intimacy that not everyone will find desirable, but which is rewarded with reveals that only such engagement will unlock. The ‘puzzle’ of multi-arm activation rewards curiosity and ingenuity — do you really care to know more?

Elements of OctoTale are based on dark and demanding experiences with dissociative disorder and act as points of exploration into elements of my psyche which are not always at the fore or not always in control.