YAWNING ROOM

Michaela Davies

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excerpt of 1 video channel & 6 channel audio

This project was supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Affect Comes Into Play Exhibition text by Araya Vivorakij, Curator, TAD Galleryhttp://web.me.com/michaela/2019_site/affect_comes_into_play.htmlhttp://web.me.com/michaela/2019_site/affect_comes_into_play.htmlhttp://web.me.com/michaela/2019_site/affect_comes_into_play.htmlhttp://www.boingboing.net/shapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2

Yawning Room is a participatory audio/video installation aiming to induce involuntary yawning responses in the viewer upon exposure to the work, thus contributing, in real time, to the environment created by the multiple yawners in the installation.

Yawning Room is a continuation of Davies’ interest in using involuntary mechanisms of the body as a tool for composition, and participatory art as performative research. An experiment in the induction of involuntary audience participation, the viewer creates an additional layer to the installation.

While the causes of contagious yawning are still unknown, the relationship between yawn contagion and empathy is strongly supported. The hypothesised behavioural response in the viewer is an embodied realization of connectedness- a shared moment of art viewing lassitude.

YAWNING ROOM comprises three channel video, projecting six subjects at a time, accompanied by a six channel audio track. The 23 subjects in Yawning Room were filmed as they watched videos of people yawning, and, in turn, provide yawning stimuli for the viewer. The accompanying six channel composition was created from dry and processed recordings of yawns.

Many thanks to: Boris Bagattini- video and post production; Reuben Alexander- speaker stand fabrication; and the participants who yawned, or attempted to yawn, for this project: Nick Rabone, Matte Rochford, Tenley Gilmore, Annaki Kissas, Mark Hetherington, Mike Anderson, Claire Conroy, Louise Maloney, Lea Spratt-Simpson, Theresa Caruana, Clare Cooper, Nick Kennedy, Lucy Suze Taylor, Clare Holland, Victoria Hunt, Chas Glover, Mark Simpson, Ivan Jordan, Lorna Clarkson, Justine Muller, Damian Martin, Heather McKenzie, and Yashai Shoduri.