Author: Gary Hill
Video color, stereo sound, 4’ 17”.
In this work we can see a speaker on the screen (it covers the entire screen) and the artist begins to speak, referring to the speaker himself. This is followed by more statements of what he is saying, “…a hand enters the box…”. We can see how a hand full of sand enters the image and gradually releases sand into the cone of the speaker. The voice vibrates in the speaker's cone and the grains of sand bounce through the air. As he talks more, the cone fills with sand (the hand releases more and more sand). The voice becomes confused with the grains of sand, the voice merges with it. The speaker is less and less visible until finally it is covered in sand and the voice timbre crackles and falls completely silent. When the speaker (the speaker's voice) is completely buried in sand, the voice sounds far away but remarkably clear.