SOPHIE BARBASCH

I collected goodnight phone messages from strangers. I posted the following advertisement in the strictly platonic part of the personals section: “leave me a goodnight voicemail before you go to sleep at night as though we have been together for years. i will listen to it before i go to sleep.” My goal was to use technology to create an unexpectedly intimate scenario, at once alienating and tender. Later, I created an installation piece where the voices play on a phone. Every time you hang up the phone and pick it back up again, a new voice begins to play. In this sense, you get to choose who you want to listen to, thereby participating in this pseudo-audition process.