Inorout   (2007)

Inorout   (2007)

(A conversation with an opening door)
5 mins 33 secs
Audio cd, edition of 40, available (for 2o krona) in the gallery’s local grocery store during Adam Chodzko’s solo exhibition at Signal, Malmö, Sweden (2007).

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Inorout (2007) explores Adam Chodzko’s ongoing theme of human behaviour in relation to our limits, edges, insides and outsides, private and public spaces and the access points to the flows between these binary oppositions.  Within these concerns are questions about who is the artwork for, why should it be for those who, where is it and where could it be, as well as what is beyond the artwork and what is inside it?  Everyday dialogue between people demonstrates multiple agreements and disagreements which present boundaries, differences and shared beliefs. In some parts of the world the acknowledgement of agreement is signalled with an inhalation and an ingressive sound rather than the more usual exgressive sound.  For example, in English, the word ‘yes‘ or even ‘uh huh‘ is based around an exhalation; An assertive expressing outwards of one’s breath towards the other person. In other cultures the same meaning is demonstrated by an openness, a risk, an inhalation; an accepting of a shared space with another by gathering breath into the body.
As part of Chodzko’s solo exhibition at Signal, Malmö, Sweden (2007)  – with works based around themes of dispersal, interior and exterior and conscious and unconscious spaces, limits and borders – he discovered that the gallery’s highly insulated front door seemed to make a powerful inhalation sound when opened.  This sound seemed to parallel the gentle ingressive inhalation sound of agreement or acknowledgement when in dialogue with the Signal Gallery’s curators, including Elena Tzotzi and Carl Lindh.  As a result Chodzko decided to interview the Signal Gallery front door in the style of a seance, or the game ’20 questions’, in order to learn more about its identity and beliefs. During the exhibition he then offered the results of this on CD at a local grocery store for the price of 20 krona (about £1.70).
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20 questions…. (A script as basis for inorout)

[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]

I have a Danish friend, sometimes when I’m talking to her I hear her go  [my attempt at a Nordic inhalation sound]  …an almost silent sound of a quick inhalation…rushed in across the teeth. Most common in the Nordic countries… It’s a listening sound of agreement and acknowledgement.  It is very different from the English sound of ‘yes’ which exhales onto a subject, or ‘aha’ which poises it on the edge of the mouth and then projects it, or ‘mmmmmm’ which again…is a kind of oral ‘sitting on the fence’…It doesn’t really absorb an idea into our bodies in the same way as the  [my attempt Nordic inhalation sound] which is somehow much more trusting and much braver!
Apparently roughly every 10th ‘yes‘ in Sweden is a yes that is said at the same time as inhaling. It is used when having a conversation with someone, to confirm that you are listening, but also to end a discussion, to mean ‘we are in agreement: the subject is decided.’
(Visually, blinking is used in the same way: an editing point or punctuation, in a dialogue).
Strangely, the front door of Signal, Malmö, also does this ingressive inhalation!

[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]

But I wanted to find out whether it was an acknowledgement made by the city towards the gallery, or whether the gallery was making this inhalation towards the city.  We decided to play the game of “20 questions” in order to find out.

Ok…begin…

———————–

So, My first question is…….do you dream?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
Next,…do you find your existence difficult?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
So that’s 3?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
Does that count as a question?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
So I’ve now used up 5?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
So I only have 15 left?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
I’m just trying to figure out the framework of this game…. …. these don’t count as proper questions, do they?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
Are you happy?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
Is it safe?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
are you old?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you miss anything?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you move on 4 legs?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
have you lived before?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you also exist somewhere else?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you feel shame?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
are you hungry?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you have enough time?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
do you remember everything?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
are you invisible?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]
ok so that’s it…last question is ……do you always tell the truth?
[SIGNAL GALLERY FRONT DOOR:  INGRESSIVE WHISTLE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT]

Ok.
Thank you!
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The exhibition at Signal, Malmö also presented: Sowmat (2007),  Turning Point, (2007) a performance involving a car breaking down at the exact mid-point of the Øresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen and inorout, a conversation with an opening door, together with the film piece Yet (2006).
Inorout, like Sowmat, also operates as a threshold connecting it to Untitled Stile (Teenage Version)   (1991), Untitled [boundary] (1991), Night Shift (2004),  M-path (2006), Hole (2007) and Borrowed Cold Lodge  (2008), etc. The idea of the artwork as a space for dialogue between those somehow ‘outside’ the gallery limits occurs in works such as Our Host Postponed the Drinks Until After the Storm  (2015), The Gorgies Centre  (2002), cell-a (2002) while communication between the human and more-than-human also can be seen in works such as A Plan for a Spell (2001), Great Expectations  (2015) and O, you happy roots, branch and mediatrix  [live]   (2020).