Auto inArtist statement (March 2005)After the completion of my last show (in transit: railscapes), and several proposals later, I was forced to consider part time work at a local contact center. The lure of decent wages and flexible work timings were reason enough for me to sign up and undergo extensive training in requirements like voice, accent and culture, both British and American. During the course of training I was introduced to “R.P” which is “Received Pronunciation”, commonly known as ‘Queens English’ or ‘B.B.C English’! (During this period, trainees are also required to watch and mimic certain television personalities, who might possess effective ‘R.P’ skills. For those interacting with American customers it would be to pick up common slang from popular sitcoms.) At the end of two months of training, I was certified, to have been neutralized of any “Indianisms” in my use of the English language and that I was now capable of communicating efficiently with potential clients from the United Kingdom. During the course of a call it is mandatory to follow an assigned script under a fixed time frame. For example:
This is the part of the process that gets interesting. In an attempt to provide an effective and comprehendible telephonic after sales service, the industry seems to be churning out automated human machines, that a lot of the times seem to be following scripted dialogues, irrespective of a correct solution. From my earlier interest in sound as an independent medium, I have composed a sound piece (auto-in), which revolves around the use of ‘paraphrasing’ in conversation and accepted scripts in telephonic conversations. Primarily it focuses on the excessive repetition of “key words” and so called “security questions” audible as the automation of voice. The accompanying sculptural works mainly that of a crow and a parrot with human torsos engrossed in a game of dominos, whose traditional numbers I have replaced with phonemic symbols. Taking into consideration that most Indian languages are phonetic (i.e. the speech sounds match their written forms) and English is a non- phonetic language (i.e. the speech sounds do not always match their written form) hence the use of phonemic symbols to converse. These two birds have been traditionally used in Indian mythology as the taletellers of epic proportions. For example, the “Kathasaritya Sagara” which is the story of a parrot narrating short stories to a young princess. Most of the stories usually transcend into newer one’s which have only a small trace of the previous episodes. And as for the crow, its depictions in folklore and classics like the “Jataka Tales”, were melancholic stories of human natured animals or vice versa, which usually ended with a moral. Accompanying the crow and the parrot, are the two figures, which I refer to as the ‘recorder heads’ - human like figures with 60’s ‘spool’ audio recorders for heads. The recorder heads ideally depict my fear of us becoming the human automated machine. This is my first attempt at working on a large installation piece, compromising sound and sculpture and for this installation, I chose to work with fiberglass as a medium for the sculptural work as fiberglass has the capacity to reproduce ‘replicants’, supporting my interest in forced repetition. Signing out... Navin Thomas |
