Kieran Boland

In 2015, I was a guest on a live radio arts program* to discuss an exhibition I was included in called Conflicted. Over a conversation that lasted approximately fifteen minutes, the total duration of my own vocal detritus—variations of ‘um’, ‘ah’ or some other non-essential expression—was (almost) exactly one minute. These transitional utterances normally edited out in the minds of both the speaker and the listener were brought to the foreground through the linear removal of all other spoken ‘content’. One minute of silence is traditionally associated with the remembrance of Australians who died in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. As a result of what should have ideally been silence, a new image of a 'conflicted' state emerges—appearing on a flat-screen television amongst the refuse behind the radio station where the material was first broadcast. As an infinite loop, the image features a solitary figure within an imaginary soundproofed studio setting, moving as it were, against the grain of his own voice.

*102.7 FM Triple RRR Radio (SmartArts with Richard Watts) to discuss Conflicted: Adversaries in Art curated by Mardi Nowak and Kent Wilson at the Town Hall Gallery Hawthorn, 2015