Remote Cardiac Arrest (2018)
Sound work for speaker installation or headphones
Variable length (loop)
Remote Cardiac Arrest*
*or when your heart is somewhere else
Every time I leave a place, I write a letter to remind myself why. A linguistic time capsule - something to capture a headspace and a particular perspective when it feels most pressing and relevant. As a good friend of mine once said, with time you forget the bad things, you just remember the good; an exercise in self-preservation, not to close yourself off to life. Years ago someone spoke to me about 'learning to live in an adult world.' I sometimes wonder if this is what she was talking about.
My Grandmother used to tease me that I 'collected' capital cities like other people collect stamps or baseball cards. I used to send her a postcard from every place that I visited, full of impressions backed by the most gratuitous panoramic image available on the postcard rack. When she died suddenly, it felt like I had no one else to send them to. The distance measured by loss was greater than what I had become accustomed to; things kept shrinking, disappearing into the horizon.
* some text missing *
Origin stories are a useful conceit; a map for other people to use so you don't look lost to them, an organised sequence of intent and meaning somehow pinned in space. What is unread is unheard, unrepeatable, unrecoverable, unwritten ... lost.
[...]
Look. Look again. Begin again at the beginning.
