The Voice Over Project: Jack's Drive In

SITE SPECIFIC SOUND INSTALLATION

Transforming a viewer's reality to a moment of cinema. To break reality and create a wholly immersive environment which occurs outside the normal flow of time. Disrupting the perspective of an unsuspecting viewer from the first to the third person.


You are seated, quite literally, on a park bench. You are watching the sun set, the birds rustle the trees, and the cars drive by. You are eating fries and a slider (what they call small greasy hamburgers in this part of NY) and drinking a Coke. You are taking part in the American summer ritual of eating dinner at a roadside diner. Everything is as it should be.


Suddenly you hear a voice coming mysteriously from nowhere. It is a narrative, a text about the "Architecture of the Hamburger and how it forms a reflection of ourselves". Without warning this invisible "voice over" causes your perspective to shift. You are now outside of yourself, observing your environment instead of experiencing it. The invisible narrative, happening as a voice over would in cinema, informs you somehow about yourself. Suddenly there is a self-realization about why you have come to a place like this and what purpose this ritual serves in our culture. This event, which occurs seemingly out of time, places you in history and in culture. You have come here for an early dinner, to eat outside, to do something that people do in the summer. You are now doing more than just eating, you are understanding. Switching roles from a participant of ritual, to one who understands it.


Jack's Drive In was one execution of The Voice Over Project. Each location this piece is installed has its own text and voice over.