I went to see Listening Post yesterday at the Science Museum. It took me about two hours to get there, that's London traffic for you! Once I found the entrance I was excited like a kid going to see a dinosaur exhibition for the first time. The installation by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin was captivating and humorous. The overall experience reminded me of cyberpunk films such as Hackers to name one. As soon you enter the dark room you are drawn into it, staring at 200 mini screens that resemble a home cinema screen. The seating arrangement and dramatic ambient music add to the cinematic feeling. The long intervals after the messages are displayed and read out create anticipation and tension. I did not particularly appreciate the cheesy background music that accompanied the whole process. I do like the concept of computer generated voices reading out uncensored random messages abstracted from chat rooms on the internet. The randomness made me stay longer waiting to hear more absurd messages.
Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin's Listening Post immerses us in a rhythm of computer-synthesised voices reading, or singing out, a fluid play of real-time text fragments. The fragments are sampled from thousands of live, unrestricted internet chatrooms, bulletin boards and other online public forums. They are uncensored and unedited. Stray thoughts resonate through the space in sound and voice as texts surge, flicker, appear and disappear, at varying sizes and speeds, across a suspended grid of over 200 small electronic screens. An ambient soundtrack accompanies the activity with isolated pulses reminiscent of computer modems, clatterings, footsteps and the beeping of mechanical answering machines. At intervals darkness and silence take over, creating momentary pauses before Listening Post continues with its next movement.
