Home > Past Exhibitions > 1991 > Diana Burgoyne

Diana Burgoyne Untitled (1991) Table, chairs, video monitors, electronic apparatus 1414 Monterey, 2nd floor In one room, four video monitors sit on chairs around a kitchen table, each showing the face of a person from Pittsburgh's Northside region. They carry on a conversation. One of the neighbors recalls that the building now housing the museum was a candy factory; she remembers that the workers sometimes tossed candy from the windows to neighbor children. Each TV head speaks, then turns to listen to another talking head. But no sound comes from the monitors. To hear these ordinary, human reminiscences, the visitor is forced to go to the adjacent room, put on a helmet, and walk around the room to get close to the transmitters. It is not possible to see and hear simultaneously. The visitor is required to become an "antenna," in order to completely experience the installation. "Installation allows me to connect the viewer physically to the piece. Giving the viewer an active role makes them part of 'the system' referred to in the work." Diana Burgoyne Lives and works in Montreal