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Club Confessional |
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Club Confessional was a digital artwork by Emergency Art Lab, hinting at surveillance and the commercial use of personal information in the ‘confessional’ TV shows. The electronic gathering of private information is a permitted but unsolicited aspect of our everyday lives – the difference is that the Club Confessional event was totally devoid of commercial gain or exploitation.
The e-artlab designed and The Junction built - a soundproof private booth in the form of a white cube and placed it on the dancefloor at two club nights at The Junction in 2001.
People entered the booth one at a time and were asked to confess something or talk about their private life. Outbursts, confessions, or showing off were all projected large and soundless in the club. Extracts from the confession were then anonymously recorded and scrambled with other confessions. Audio was remixed and played back in the bars, staircases and corridors of The Junction. The sound changed as more people took part.
Club Confessional highlighted the contrast between the public space of the club and the private experiences of the visiting clubbers. In the booth, individual clubbing behaviour was isolated, and the two primary components of visuals and audio split apart. Inside the booth clubbers mostly carried on as if they were on the dancefloor.
The work was intended to highlight the contrast between the very public space of the club and the private thoughts, feelings, contacts and experiences of those who use and enjoy the space; one aim being to provide a means of breaking the barrier between these two facets of the club experience by making public (with - naturally - the consent and understanding of the participants) private experiences that people choose to offer as material. The popularity of TV events like 'Big Brother' prepared the ground for the acceptance of this collision of private and public, and the intention of Emergency Art Lab was to build on this cultural momentum while creating something more thoughtful, inclusive and immediate.
March 23 2001
Boogie Wonderland
April 28 2001
Dot Cotton
www.e-artlab.com
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