Multimedia installation
1 Electroprobe, electronic objects, table
200 x 40 x 70 cm
Electroprobe, 2003/2007
magnetic microphone, custom electronics, acryl, aluminium
43.5 x 13 cm
'Still Life With Timer' is Troika's updated contribution to the historical genre of still life and the depiction of everyday inanimate objects. Retaining a suggestion of familiar things it uses an assemblage of electric and electronic objects.
In the foreground, to the left, are a number of Casio alarm clocks. They are lying beside a tape recorder, a record player and a laptop computer, along with a mouse mat draped over the edge of the table. Objects include common office items such as a desk light or a large clock, as well as objects from the contents of Troika's studio such as a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, one of the first mainstream audience home computers, a Hulger Phone and a Polaroid camera, all laid out on the studio's table.
Adapting the artificial arrangement of many a still life, 'Still Life With Timer' becomes the perfect vehicle for creating an alternative taxonomy of objects, in which the spatial organization follows a different principle – that of arranging the objects according to their electromagnetic tunes.
As a result, a magnetic 'orchestra' is created to which one can listen with the Electroprobe, a magnetic microphone for a parallel soundscape that explores our relation to what we perceive as inanimate objects revealing a secret life of its own.
The objects come alive: electric babblings, magnetic hums, inaudible whistles. Warm and bassy hums coming from a tape recorder, damp strokes provided by an arrangement of clocks, electromagnetic melodies performed by a mixer and a television, songs of interferences between a computer screen and a record player, GPS bass lines with remote control solos – the soundscape created by this 'still life organ' is poly-phonic, intriguing and ever-changing.
Still Life With Timer was commissioned by The Contemporary Art Society for Outer Worlds, an exhibition at Deloitte Luxemburg
30 November 2010– 5 January 2011.