Lines Spoken For

Lines Spoken For audio excerpt

Lines Spoken For intertwines historical fact and fiction and centers on the International Date Line, itself a fiction of staggering proportions.

The project uses an automated telephone answering system format; navigating through the Kafkaesque telephone system, callers uncover the peculiar story of a delegate to the 1884 Conference for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. At this conference, involving a select group of international stakeholders, an issue of global importance is on the table: the location of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

In Lines Spoken For the temporal construction of cause and effect, and consequently of narrative, is determined by each caller’s particular navigation through the system.

A parallel publication uses a rotating binding system and circular pages to undo the linear logic of the book and to remix notions of time and narrative progression.

2003
telephone project and book publication
variable
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