can you hear me?

Designers: Lucy Albers-Mead, Tim Cortez, Jordyn Good, Caden J. Lefler, Wren Tran Ryder

Guiding Professor: Brian Hapcic

Venue: University of Northern Colorado, Norton Theatre

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About: Can You Hear Me? was an interactive art installation that was part of the PQ [UN]Common Design Project. Our project was one of 13 projects from Universities across the globe selected to present at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial on what is RARE. The interactive exhibit allowed viewers to discover stories we hid in trash piles we created. We focused a plot of under 100 instruments to light the installation and I created a soundscape of Greeley, Colorado sounds which played throughout the exhibit. Most of the exhibit included upcycled materials, including boxes, political signs, containers, and other trash. My favorite contributions include worn-out shoes, an old bike wheel, and a dead jalapeño plant.

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Summary of our project:

What’s the RARE:

 

In a highly digitalized and divided society, the unfortunate rarity we now find is that of genuine human connection. As we all fight across imaginary lines, screaming our messages at each other, we lose the ability to understand and listen to the stories that make us human. The rarity is found when two individuals are able to listen wholeheartedly without cover of perception and begin to see each other for the humans they truly are.

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THE PROJECT:

Our Installation Piece, Can You Hear Me, explores what is RARE in our divided, disparate, and desperate world. The project provides audience members an experience which is all too RARE, one that is raw, and visceral: Listening. Our Installation invites viewers to Listen, to receive a story about a personal, sentimental item from members of our local community of Greeley, Colorado, USA. After a brief interview concerning the background and importance of the item, it (or a simulacrum) is offered to the team for presentation. Once curated, viewers are met with the opportunity to connect with the stories of the objects by being able to listen to the history told from the owners’ perspective. Participants discover these objects in piles of rubbish symbolic of the vitriol so present throughout much of our nation’s dialogue.

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Photos: CadenJohn Photography, Brian Hapcic