Neutralised Time (in seconds), Neutralised Speech (in silence)

Meaning is defined against the limitations of the instruments that measure it. These joint works address how our innate reliance on both language and technology leads us to standardise our systems of knowledge and expression. This innate compartmentalizing of experience shuts out alternatives to the prevailing culture.

In the first work Neutralised Time (In Seconds), a book page turns to the recitation of increasingly obscure units of time measurement. The page reveals and conceals a mushroom cloud, describing scales of time and change that are inconceivable. In the second, Neutralised Speech (In Silence), a woman’s voice relays a set of the Harvard Sentences while images from Operation Buffalo, the 1956 British nuclear fission bomb testing at ground level at Maralinga in South Australia, sovereign area of the Maralinga Tjarutja people. The Harvard Sentences were used to test the clarity of communications technologies so that orders to aircraft could be clearly followed. Over the 20th century, these archaic and narrow phrases have become the standard of which voices can be understood.

Screen printed material from the collection of the National Archives of Australia. Photograph of 1956 British nuclear fission bomb testing at ground level at Maralinga in South Australia, sovereign area of the Maralinga Tjarutja people. 

National Archives of Australia: Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston UK; C5271, Operation Buffalo – Colour Record, 1956; E924.

Neutralised Time (in seconds)

Neutralised Time (in seconds), recorded voice, acrylic, custom electronics, screenprint on found book. 128 x 50 x 50 cm, 2019. Narration: David Allan. Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia: C571, 1337816. Photos: Brenton McGeachie, Rory Gillen 2019.

Neutralised Speech (in Silence)

Neutralised Speech (In Silence), recorded voice, acrylic, steel, electronics, smartphones, 110 x 120 x 37 cm, 2019. Narration: Leanne Rivers. National Archives of Australia: Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston UK; C5274, Operation Buffalo – Colour Record, multiple number series, 1956; E924. Photos: Rory Gillen

Harvard Sentences I - X

Harvard Sentences I - X, laser etched screen print, 21 x 23 cm, 2019.

Left to right:

Harvard Sentence I: ‘Ship maps are different from those for planes.’

Harvard Sentence II: ‘Dimes showered down from all sides.’

Harvard Sentence III: ‘They sang the same tunes at each party.’

Harvard Sentence IV: ‘The sky in the west is tinged with orange red.’

Harvard Sentence V: ‘The pods of peas ferment in bare fields.’

Harvard Sentence VI: ‘The horse balked and threw the tall rider.’

Harvard Sentence VII: ‘The hitch between the horse and cart broke.’

Harvard Sentence VIII: ‘Pile the coal high in the shed corner.’

Harvard Sentence IX: ‘The gold vase is both rare and costly.’

Harvard Sentence X: ‘The knife was hung inside its bright sheath.’

Photographs: Rory Gillen