“She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening.” ― Angela Carter, The Lady of the House of Love
She Herself is a Haunted House is a dollhouse sound installation questioning the essence of a space. The dollhouse is prepared with hidden tiny speakers, including 12 pairs of earbuds, one set of headphones, and one intercom speaker. She Herself is a Haunted House centers upon themes of ancestry, womanhood, memory alive, tabula rasa, and relation to place. It experiments with hauntology and aims to find out what essentially remains in a space after something has occurred there. What is the essence of a space and what does that sound like? How does that carry over through time and how does that map onto the body?
Sound Sources:
- Water dripping, rain, lily pond at the Riverside Heritage House
- Heartbeat
- Kitchen sounds, 1892 pump organ inherited from Breana’s paternal Great Grandmother, doors opening and closing
- Audio from a home video of a conversation between Breana and her Grandmother
- Bats and owl outside at night