Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. The Marionette Maker. From 19 November to 16 March 2015

Janet Cardiff: For us sound is a very physical media and the way we work with it, it creates an illusion of a physical sculpture space and you have the idea of absence and presence and I think this is a theatrical idea and that we basically create soundtracks that are very filmic or theatrical in their nature. But in the theatricality it gives the illusion of space.

When you enter into the Crystal Palace you see an old fashion North American style caravan, like a camping caravan. We had it in the studio just storing it and we thought it looked like a very interesting piece so we decided to bring it into the Crystal Palace and see how it interacts with this space.

George Bures Miller: Then we invented a kind of a narrative we thought that somebody perhaps living in this caravan, in the woods, compulsively working on making things, making puppets, marionettes, little figures and try to bring them to life in a certain way. As you walk around to the back of the caravan you find there’s a life-size, there’s a person sleeping in the back of the caravan but she never wakes up and the little figures that the man has been making all around her almost that he’s trying to entertain this sleeping person.

We like to make works that somehow immerse the audience, I mean, this piece, you are a voyeur you are looking through the windows into the caravan, but we’ve found that, in some way, keeping people outside of the work, actually, in some ways, makes them feel more immerse in it because they imagine, through their imagination they gointo the work and so it creates a different form of immersion.

Janet Cardiff: And about the idea of choreography of the piece for the audience, the whole soundtrack is about 50 minutes long and within that soundtrack there are various things that happen like the guitars players and the little puppet guitar player along and then there’s an opera singer and she plays along and so. Every stage of the soundtrackthere’s a corresponding visual thing that happens within the piece. In ways is very connected to the idea of choreography, of dance, as well as theater. The windows become this little stage fronts so as you walk around and it’s almost like a three dimensional theater with different stages all the way around it.
I think the reason we work in a three dimensional sound technology is because we want to create this world. For us it’s interesting and I’m not sure why but I think every artist has this sort of urge to do something, for us is the illusory quality of audio and how it can transport you in a different world.

We are obviously fascinated by theatrical set ups but with the absence of actors in the works there’s somehow, I mean, when you are out of a play, there’s always, is not like a film, there’s always something between you and that reality. And I think in our works, because there’s no actors, you are almost solving a mystery in your head as you are being a voyeur looking into this piece. And is easier for the viewer to believe in this reality and to start becoming fascinated by what’s going on here, who’s in? Who created it? What’s up? What’s going on?

Yes, we are sound artists, I guess, we love sound for what it can do but it can’t do everything, it can’t give us the sense of an object, its physicality, is smell its texture, and so, for us it’s why would you say I’m not gonna work with objects, I’m just gonna work with sound, I’m just gonna do this. We just like to explore and see what can happen so we are always just throwing ideas back and forth.

But also I think that through our investigations with audio walks and video walks and different things, we realized that there are different strengths that come up between the idea of a visual thing once you have a vision, say it with a video walks or if you just have audio, with the audio walks, and it’s a push and pull (Yeah) thing because as soon as you are out of a visual thing, we realize that most people see that as the first level and then the sound in the background, so we play with this push and pull between the visual and the audio.