Dialog is an art installation by Christopher Thomas Allen. Originally created as part of the Articulated Exhibition at London’s OXO Tower in 2006, it has since toured internationally to major galleries and art biennales.
In the installation a series of arguments and word association games are taking place between two computer terminals that are placed inside an ordinary office space setting. The original audio recordings were made during a series of debates that Allen held in London and the images that appear on the computer screens have been selected in relation to each word spoken. Each image was selected using an internet search engine and then edited in time with the spoken dialog as it unfolds between the two screens.
The images form a visual cacophony and create a divergent, surreal narrative of their own. Exposing the semiotics in their language the piece forms a direct conversation between our understanding of narrative through sound and image. Through this process it abstracts the disembodied speakers and their often comical debates, breathing life to the inanimate computers consoles and making comment on the tangential influence of technology on language in our information saturated culture.
Outside The Box, Cornerhouse Gallery, Manchester, 2007
Media City Seoul 09, Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea, 2008
Biennale Cuvée, The OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria, 2009