Dear Reader // as part of Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds
Elif Öner & Evrim Kavcar, Dear Reader, 2019, participatory art, table, chair, desk lamp, A4 photocopies, notebook
“On a cold winter evening, the sound of breath that is exhaled and puffed onto the cold window of a crowded public bus stuck in the traffic jam in Zincirlikuyu right before reaching the Bosphorus Bridge.“
In “Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds”, the two artists follow the in-between sounds of their daily lives. The dictionary embraces sensitive descriptions of sounds. Starting off with their own descriptions, Kavcar and Öner open up the process for participation by inviting the visitors to recall and extract the sounds in their own personal memories and to add them to the dictionary. In opening up the process for the society’s participation, the artists’ aim is to audit a collective auditory memory. Adding a new description of sound to the dictionary requires concentrating on specific gestures, experiences, movements or testimonies that are rooted in our memories and collective consciousness.
“Dear Reader,” “Dear Reader,” is a program that accompanies the dictionary. The program grows with guests who are specialists in listening to those sounds which do not turn into words.
