Kieran Boland

Audio & video for iPod | car battery | photomural | wood panels | audio speakers | cast silicon | perspex | Danny: Caspar Thorn (video) Tony: Tony Biggs (audio)

Produced for RISE AND FALL: A series of projects curated by David McDONALD and Chris BARTON​ for Curtain House Elevator, Melbourne 27.08.08 - 17.09.08 

In Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining (1980), the little boy Danny has an invisible friend named Tony who lives in Danny's mouth. To differentiate between himself and Tony, Danny modulates his own voice and animates a finger to indicate the change of persona. In an early scene, Danny stands at the bathroom mirror pleading with the prophetic Tony to tell him why he doesn't want to go to the Overlook Hotel for the winter until it is revealed through the vision of a torrent of blood exiting an elevator. Tony's outpouring on everything wrong with the world in the past, present and future seems to extend indefinitely within tony B: the overlook re-mix. Tony's stream of consciousness is in fact the mixed and modulated voice of Tony Biggs to sound like a creepy little boy. Tony Biggs begins his weekly talk-back based program On the Blower [102.7 FM Triple RRR Friday 9am- 12pm] somewhat provocatively with the end theme music from the movie Talk Radio (1988) in which a Talkback Radio Star is assassinated by a disagreeable listener. Tony has a certain distaste for the iPod revolution in which human interactivity is missing, his lingering presence as such within the installation is therefore something of a misnomer—as a lost voice from the other side, the residue of his search for a "spirited discussion" is presented as an uneasy stand-in for elevator music.

Review by Penny MODRA
(The Melbourne Age)