Psst

As part of a 3-day event focusing on the dynamics of sensation and the nature of gatherings (Something is Happening), I created this complex device with a simple purpose: to exist, hidden within a public restroom fixture, and periodically harass the person in the neighboring stall with intermittent knocking and psst's.

Something is Happening

I wrote the following description of "Psst" for the event

A social experiment, exploring uninvited communication between strangers, takes place in the campus restrooms. The instrument employed in this investigation take the form of a mischievous device, designed to create micro-interventions into the washroom routine of visitors. From one restroom stall to its neighbor, the hidden electromechanical device intrudes into what is a solitary act, occurring in a private space. The crude attempts at communication are anthropomorphic and familiar, yet ambiguous in their intentions. They attempt to evoke an initial "affective" reaction in their recipient, followed by an evolving sequence of emotions as the impinging persists.

This experiment is part of my ongoing effort to reconcile the relationships between artistic production, pseudo-scientific research and lighthearted terrorism

Artist Zac Kime Montanaro wrote the following review of "Psst"

Just as the exclamation "psst" presupposes another person, Rob Duarte's work of the same name surreptitiously impinges upon the unspoken agreement amongst bathroom goers - don't acknowledge the other. To hear "psst" from the other side of the stall, when already one is making so many compromises outside of the comfort of their home lavatory - accepting the presence of smells and the residue of past use - sends a shutter, a flush of blood and prick of the senses. Accompanied by a succinct rapping, all covenants are off.

This bathroom arrangement is not the only system being encroached upon. An MP3 player has been patched into and works with a breadboard to mechanically sound these base aural gestures. The denoted purpose of the consumer-grade MP3 player is co-opted here. Similarly with the bathroom, being a place for seedy activity even though it has such a pragmatic purpose, because there are only degrees of separation from the bodily parts involved turning from facilitating necessary base functions to the perverse commingling of sensors and mechanisms. Duarte's Psst taps into this and perhaps the mere degrees that separate consumer goods from becoming instruments of terror, the mere degrees that separate science and warfare.

Mirror Photo: Zac Montanaro