Nina Katchadourian
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Born 1968, Stanford, California; lives in Brooklyn, New York and Berlin, Germany
Talking Popcorn, 2001/2019; Popcorn machine, black pedestal, red vinyl base, microphone, laptop with custom-written Morse code program, printed paper bags, popcorn; 90 x 90 x 72 inches/228.6 x 182.88 cm
Nina Katchadourian’s witty sound sculpture, Talking Popcorn, represents a natural evolution of her interest in language and translation, or the loss thereof. Using the principles of Morse Code, she rigged a system to transcribe the sounds made from corn as it transforms into popcorn into a language of sorts.
As the artist explains the process: “A microphone in the cabinet underneath the popcorn machine picks up sound of popping corn, and a laptop hidden in the pedestal runs a custom-written program that translates the popping sounds according to the patterns and dictates of Morse Code. A computer-generated voice provides a simultaneous spoken translation. The computer program for Talking Popcorn was written by Josh Goldberg using Max/MSP. Since Morse code consists of a system of long and short sounds, and popcorn only pops in short sounds, the first challenge we faced was how to overcome this disparity. I remembered that the doomed sailors on the Russian submarine Kursk had tried tapping out messages on the hull. If this was possible, it must be a matter of pacing the knocking differently in order to communicate long/short marks. This is in fact what Talking Popcorn does: it listens to a series of pops in a group, taking a running average of the amount of silence that follows each pop, and then designates each of those pops as a dot or a dash. Measuring the lengths of silence in groups also helps account for the acceleration that happens as the kernels heat up and pop and peak speed and density. Talking Popcorn blurts out words in many different languages, but ultimately it speaks a “language” very much its own (one person dubbed it “popcornese”). When this piece has been exhibited, I have kept a daily journal of the popcorn machine’s speech, placing samples of popcorn inside a vacu-formed capsule next to a text panel that shows everything spoken by the machine on that particular day. One of these capsules is hung on the gallery wall at the end of each day of the show. In a play on the tradition of bronzing a baby’s first shoes, I also bronzed the popcorn machine’s first word, “WE,” (dot dash dash, dot) and preserved these kernels in a wooden jewelry case (Talking Popcorn’s First Words, 2001).”
The first “Talking Popcorn” machine self-immolated while on view in an exhibition in 2008. Because the computer survived the fire, its last “words” were able to be captured and then interpreted by sixteen people from various disciplines. In 2019, for an exhibition at Fridman Gallery in New York, the soundtrack of the multiple translations played in a gallery with the burned, damaged carcass of the original machine, which was displayed on a black plinth with the machine’s final pronouncement.
The impact of being in a room with this device is absolutely hilarious. However, the implications of misunderstanding and misinterpretation are poignant and relate to so many current events and issues. https://ninakatchadourian.bandcamp.com/album/talking-popcorns-last-words
Katchadourian is an interdisciplinary artist whose work includes video, performance, sound, sculpture, photography, and public projects. Her video Accent Elimination was included at the 2015 Venice Biennale in the Armenian pavilion, which won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Group exhibitions include shows at the Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdom; Turner Contemporary, London, United Kingdom; de Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Turkey; Turku Art Museum, Finland; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; ICA Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Artists Space, SculptureCenter; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library, and MoMA PS1, all in New York. A solo museum survey of her work entitled “Curiouser” opened at the Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin in 2017 and traveled to the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, California, and the Brighham Young University Art Museum, Provo, Utah. An accompanying monograph, also entitled Curiouser, is available from Tower Books.
Katchadourian is represented by Catherine Clark Gallery and Pace Gallery.
http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/
Photographs courtesy of the artist
