PIECE OF MIND is an interactive audiovisual installation built around the loop of internal voice — the phrases that construct and reinforce identity. Before entering, each visitor records a phrase in their own voice. Inside is completely dark.
The space plays nostalgic sepia footage — archival film by Carlin Francis. Visitors navigate with a single flashlight, its movement fading between video sources; a live feed brings their own silhouette into the frame, surfacing among the old footage. That same movement modulates the recorded phrase in real-time: pitching it up and down, stretching and stuttering its grains, until a familiar voice becomes something unrecognizable.
This sensory conversation could be interpreted as a reflection of the conditioning of one’s own identity, or a question against the very nature of it.
— Artist Statement, 2013
Created with filmmaker and photographer Carlin Francis, Piece of Mind was made for Deciphering Identity — a curated exhibition at the Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley College, where it was chosen as the centerpiece of the show.
After a twenty-day run in March 2013, the work was invited to the 2nd International Csound Conference in Boston — presented in a full room to an esteemed audience. It became known among those who passed through as The Happy Room.