Antiphony
Antiphony is an answering service that takes over an art institution's phone number.
The project is delivering a new service, where the audience is given the opportunity to talk to strangers about certain words. Callers can choose among a variable amount of words, depending on the versions. There is total of 16 available options: emptiness, chaos, silence, violence, border, hospitality, metamorphosis, doubt, pabulum, desire, withdraw, nomenclature, strength, action, failure and ritual.
Antiphony offers the audience a performative journey through one-to-one private and anonymous conversations with the project participants. The conversations can be short or long, they can be pleasant, abrupt or interrupted. You can call at any time, participants may be available or not available. None of the conversations are recorded, but the project participants are taking notes in a dedicated notebook, which become the only documentation of the piece.
Antiphony has been performed since 2014 in English, Norwegian, Dutch, Italian and Icelandic.
Upcoming:
School of Waters, Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale, San Marino
Jeg kaller det kunst, Norwegian National Museum, curated by Geir Haraldseth and Randi Godø, Oslo
2020
Across the Golden Bridge, curated by Birta Guðjónsdóttir, Reykjavík
2019
Høstustillingen, Kunstnerneshus, Oslo
https://www.hostutstillingen.no/2019/hanan-benamma...
Participants: Thee-Yezen Al-Obaide, Liam Alzafari, Ole-Petter Arneberg, Sara Baban, Tormod Carlsen, Stacey de Voe, Nora Warholm Essahli, Ragnhild Freng Dale, Pia Maria Roll, Johan Söderström and more.
2014
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (part of the Dutch Art Institute MA projects)
Using the Museum, group exhibition, curated by Nick Aikens, Christiane Berndes & Steven ten Thije
Antiphony is an answering machine service that was set up for the Van Abbe’s museum phone number +31 (0)40 238 1000.
The museum’s main phone number was occupied by a new service, offering callers the chance to select and speak to someone about 12 words redefined under the constraints of desert landscapes: action, silence, withdraw, emptiness, failure, violence, doubt, chaos, ritual, border, nomenclature and pabulum.
The goal of the project was to challenge these notions and perform an alternative, subjective and human immaterial data journey.
The system was activated from the 28th of September to the 12th of October 2014.
Participants: Jan Adriaans, Bachtijar Ashari, Michał Ciołek, Eline Janssen, Roderick Van Langen, Aarti Sunder, Boukje Ypma, Olga Niziołek, Laila Torres Mendieta, Constanza Puente, Sarah Demoen and Kastė Šeškevičiūtė
Special thanks to Peter Claassen (ICT-coordinator of VAM)
Antiphony is part of the group exhibition ‘Using the Museum’, the culmination of a year-long pro- gram taught by the Van Abbemuseum as part of the DAI’s co-op Academy.
‘Using the Museum’ includes projects by: Hanan Benammar, Michelle Browne, Eduardo Cachu- cho, Voitka Group, Anneke Ingwersen, Louis Liu & Artémise Ploegaerts, Sofia Ocana Urwitz, Marie-Andree Pellerin, Abner Preis, Kim Schonewille, Tommie Soro, Malina Suliman and Silvia Ulloa.
