A single speaker sits on top of a library copy of Herman Melville’s, Moby Dick. The speaker plays two tracks: the complete 23-hour audiobook of Moby Dick, and a recording of whale songs. The whales sing loudly enough to obscure the text but not so loud that they drown out the audiobook. Snippets of text can be heard but not clearly enough to follow the story.
This comedic and staccato gesture reorients Melville’s influence because, at last, the whales control the narrative.
Materials
Single-channel audio
Dimensions
23 hours
Year
2020