FEEL FOUND
A work for unnamed voices, distance, waiting, surveillance, and delayed listening.
DOCUMENTATION
Flyers have been posted across six U.S. states.
More than 200 have been installed throughout Los Angeles alone.
The coordinates of every flyer are recorded.
As of this writing, seventeen messages have entered the system.
The work is already in progress.
What moves.
What remains still.
What the air is doing.
What almost escaped your attention.
What you cannot name.
If a memory enters:
let it.
If you lose your thought:
let it go.
If you have nothing to say:
remain silent until you do.
Do not try to make the message beautiful.
Do not try to make it interesting.
You do not need to finish a thought.
When you are finished:
hang up.
Do not listen back.
Go home.
You will not be told who receives your voice.
You will not be told where they are.
You will not be told when it happens.
One day,
somewhere else,
someone you will never meet
may lift a telephone
and your voice will answer.
AFTER YOU CALL
Your recording enters a waiting system.
Your name is not attached to it.
Your telephone number is not given to the listener.
Your exact location is not disclosed.
The place where the recording entered the project remains attached to the work only as geographic data.
Then:
the recording waits.
Days may pass.
Months may pass.
The person who left it continues living a life the work does not know.
Eventually, somewhere else, another person makes an appointment.
They enter a room.
They lift a telephone.
The system chooses a waiting voice.
Then your voice begins.
TO HEAR ANOTHER
Make an appointment.
Choose an available time.
Arrive on time.
Come alone unless accessibility or safety requires otherwise.
The address is provided after the appointment is confirmed.
Do not research the person whose voice you may hear.
There is nothing to find.
You will not choose the recording.
You will not know what is waiting for you.
THE OTHER SIDE
Arrive at the appointed time.
Approach the door.
Open it.
It is unlocked.
Enter.
You will find yourself in a living room.
It is recognizably a room.
Not quite a home.
Not quite an exhibition.
At its center:
a desk.
A chair.
A telephone.
A camera is visible.
A masked customer service representative is waiting.
Greet them.
They will confirm your appointment.
They will explain the conditions of participation.
You will be told that your time inside the room will be watched and recorded.
The camera is not hidden.
The recording is not incidental documentation.
It is part of the work.
Read the consent form.
If you agree:
sign it.
You may leave at any time.
You are not required to complete the encounter.
Once the form is signed:
the representative leaves.
The door closes.
No one is home.
You are alone.
You are still being watched.
THE ROOM
Sit at the desk.
At its center is a telephone.
Beside it:
a pen
and a small piece of paper.
The camera remains visible.
It records from a fixed position.
It does not move toward you.
No one speaks through it.
Pick up the receiver.
The telephone connects automatically.
Before the recording begins, the system gives you two measurements.
The distance between this telephone and the location where the recording entered the system.
The amount of time that has passed since it was recorded.
For example:
2,106 miles.
118 days.
Then:
silence.
A voice begins.
Listen.
THE VOICE
The person speaking cannot see you.
They do not know you are here.
They do not know when you arrived.
They do not know what your face does when they hesitate.
They do not know whether you lean closer.
Whether you look away.
Whether you become uncomfortable.
Whether you smile.
Whether nothing appears to happen at all.
They may have forgotten making the recording.
They may be somewhere entirely different now.
The place where they spoke may have changed.
The flyer that brought them into the work may no longer exist.
But their voice has arrived.
You may hear speech.
Wind.
Traffic.
Footsteps.
Breathing.
A television through a wall.
An animal.
A train.
Someone changing their mind.
Someone remembering something they had not intended to remember.
Someone losing a thought.
Someone speaking clearly.
Someone wandering.
Someone stopping before they are finished.
You do not know where they are.
You do not know who they are.
They cannot hear you.
There is no possibility of interruption.
No reply.
No clarification.
No introduction.
For the duration of the recording,
you receive someone
without being received in return.
Listen until the voice stops.
THE CAMERA
While the caller exists in the room only as sound,
you exist in the work as an image.
The caller leaves:
a voice without a body.
The listener leaves:
a body without a voice.
The camera records you receiving someone who cannot see you.
It records waiting.
Attention.
Discomfort.
Distraction.
Recognition.
Stillness.
Or nothing visibly happening at all.
You are not asked to perform a reaction.
You are not asked to demonstrate that the recording affected you.
The camera simply remains.
The person speaking cannot see what happens to their voice when it reaches someone else.
The person listening cannot see the person who left it.
The system can hold both.
The participants cannot.
WHEN THE VOICE ENDS
The line falls silent.
Do not immediately move.
Wait.
Then return the receiver to its cradle.
The recording you heard has completed its public transmission.
It will not be assigned to another public listener.
You were its listener.
The system marks the voice:
HEARD
A preservation copy may remain within the private archive of the artwork.
But its journey through the listening system is finished.
One person left something.
It waited.
It traveled.
Another person received it.
That particular encounter will not happen again.
ONE WORD
Look at the paper on the desk.
Write one word.
Not a summary.
Not a diagnosis.
Not what you believe the speaker meant.
Do not try to describe the person.
Write one word for what remained after the line went silent.
If no word feels adequate:
leave the paper blank.
Turn it face down.
The word does not become a general response to the voice archive.
It belongs specifically to your CCTV recording.
The system links the word you leave to the image of you listening.
They remain attached through the same encounter identifier.
Your CCTV recording and your word become one record.
The caller left a voice.
You leave an image
and one word.
Nothing more is required of you.
Stand.
The camera is still recording.
You do not need to look at it.
You may.
Walk to the door.
Leave the room.
Close it behind you.
Your appointment ends.
The camera stops recording your encounter.
The chair becomes empty again.
The telephone resets.
Another voice waits.
WHAT THE LISTENER LEAVES
The listener's word is inseparable from the CCTV record produced during their appointment.
If footage from that encounter is later exhibited,
the word may appear with it.
The caller's recording does not need to accompany it.
A viewer may therefore encounter:
a silent image of someone listening
and
one word left after the listening ended.
Nothing tells the viewer what was heard.
For example:
a person sits at the telephone.
They lean forward.
Wait.
Look toward the floor.
Their recording ends.
Beside the image:
HOLLOW
Elsewhere,
another person may encounter the voice that produced that response
without ever being shown the listener.
The work refuses to reconstruct the conversation that never occurred.
THE THREE TRACES
Every completed encounter produces three linked traces.
First:
THE VOICE
A person leaves sound without remaining physically present.
Later:
THE IMAGE
Another person's body is recorded receiving that sound.
Finally:
THE WORD
The listener leaves one piece of language attached to the image of their listening.
Voice.
Image.
Word.
Inside the system, all three belong to the same encounter.
Outside the system, they do not have to be shown together.
The person who left the voice is not given the video of the listener.
The listener is not given information identifying the speaker.
A future exhibition may show the voice without the body that eventually received it.
Or the body and its word without the voice that caused them.
The relationship exists.
Access to the whole relationship does not.
THE RECORD
A completed encounter may eventually be represented internally as:
FF–0317
VOICE ENTERED
08.14.26
WAITING PERIOD
43 days
DISTANCE TRAVELED
2,104 miles
PUBLIC LISTENS
1
LISTENER WORD
hollow
CCTV RECORD
01
VOICE RECORD
01
STATUS
closed
The data confirms that something happened.
It does not explain what happened.
THE CCTV ARCHIVE
The cameras create a second archive.
The first archive contains people speaking when no listener is present.
The second contains people listening when no speaker is present.
One archive is made primarily of sound.
The other is made primarily of image.
Each CCTV record remains attached to the single word left by that listener.
The word is not a caption explaining the footage.
It is simply the only language the listener chose to leave behind.
Selected recordings may later appear within installations or exhibitions according to the terms of each participant's consent.
When shown, the CCTV footage may remain silent.
The voice that was heard in the room does not automatically accompany it.
A viewer may watch someone receive something they themselves are not permitted to receive.
They see:
a person waiting.
Listening.
Reacting.
Or apparently not reacting.
And one word.
The missing sound becomes part of the image.
Elsewhere,
a voice may play without revealing the body that eventually received it.
The work keeps separating what ordinary communication would normally join.
THE FLYERS
Every physical flyer is assigned a unique identifier.
For example:
FF–LA–0217
FF–NY–0041
FF–PA–0018
The identifier corresponds to one location within the project.
When the flyer is installed:
its coordinates are recorded.
Its date of installation is recorded.
The person who eventually encounters it is not required to identify themselves.
The flyer remains in public.
Weather changes it.
People pass it.
Someone ignores it.
Someone tears it down.
Someone photographs it.
Someone calls.
Participants and collaborators may install flyers in other cities.
Every installation becomes another point in the network.
Several months later,
when possible,
the location is revisited.
The original flyer is removed.
Something else takes its place.
The same coordinate enters another stage of the work.
Someone arriving later may encounter a different instruction than the person who came before.
The location remains.
The participants move through it.
THE TELEPHONES
Vintage landline telephones are being incorporated into the listening system.
Each telephone remains functional.
When the receiver is lifted,
it automatically places a call to a dedicated extension.
There is no live person waiting on the other end.
The system chooses one recording.
Before the voice plays,
it calculates:
the distance between the recording's point of origin and the telephone,
and
the amount of time the recording has been waiting.
Those measurements are spoken first.
Then the voice begins.
When the recording ends:
the line disconnects.
The recording leaves public circulation.
The telephone resets.
It waits for someone else.
WHEN THERE IS NO ROOM
Not every city requires a physical listening room.
In locations where one cannot be built,
the next stage of a flyer may instead direct a participant to another telephone number.
That number does not accept a recording.
It delivers one.
The participant calls.
The system selects a waiting voice.
The caller hears:
distance.
Delay.
Then:
one recording.
No identity.
No conversation.
No reply.
When the voice ends:
the line disconnects.
The network does not require its participants to occupy the same architecture.
Only the same system.
VOICEMAIL GREETING
You have arrived.
Speak from where you are.
Do not give your name.
Do not give your exact location.
You may speak.
You may pause.
You may leave silence.
Leave your message after the tone.
THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE
The representative exists at the threshold.
They schedule the appointment.
They verify arrival.
They explain the conditions of surveillance.
They provide the consent form.
Then:
they leave.
They do not remain in the room.
They do not listen beside you.
They do not interpret what you heard afterward.
They do not ask whether you enjoyed the experience.
They do not provide closure.
Customer-service language ordinarily promises access to another human being.
Here,
the representative can admit you into the system.
They cannot connect you to another person.
CURRENT SYSTEM
At present, the public telephone number routes to a dedicated voicemail box.
Recordings are collected as the physical flyer network continues to expand.
Flyer coordinates are documented for later stages of the work.
Vintage landline telephones are being sourced.
A PBX system is being developed so that lifting a receiver can automatically connect a telephone to a specific extension within the project.
Each extension will be capable of playing one waiting recording before disconnecting and resetting for the next visitor.
The first full listening room will open in Los Angeles once the archive contains enough voices to sustain it.
The room is designed to be portable.
It can disappear from one city
and reappear in another.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
The project will eventually move from its current voicemail system to programmable telecommunications infrastructure.
This will allow local telephone numbers to be established in multiple countries while feeding into the same distributed network.
A participant may encounter a flyer carrying a telephone number local to their country.
Their voice can enter the same system as voices recorded thousands of miles away.
Listening rooms can then appear in different cities.
The room does not need to remain geographically fixed.
The structure does.
An appointment.
A representative.
A consent form.
A visible camera.
A desk.
A chair.
A telephone.
One waiting voice.
One listener.
One CCTV recording.
One word attached to that recording.
Then:
disconnection.
The network can continue expanding without any participant being able to see the whole of it.
A voice left in one country may eventually be heard in another.
A listener's silent image may later appear somewhere the original voice never traveled.
The archive grows geographically larger.
Each encounter remains extremely small.
One voice.
One body.
One word.
THE SYSTEM
A flyer is installed.
Its position is recorded.
Someone finds it.
They leave familiar territory.
They stop.
They wait.
They call.
Their voice enters the system.
They hang up.
They leave.
The recording remains.
Time passes.
The speaker continues living a life the work does not know.
Somewhere else:
someone makes an appointment.
The listener arrives.
They agree to being watched.
The representative leaves.
The listener sits alone.
The camera records them.
They lift the telephone.
The system chooses a waiting voice.
Distance is announced.
Time is announced.
The speaker enters the room as sound.
The listener enters the archive as image.
For several minutes,
two people occupy the same system
without occupying the same place
or the same moment.
One cannot see.
One cannot answer.
The recording ends.
The telephone disconnects.
The listener writes one word.
The word is attached to the CCTV recording.
The voice is marked heard.
The listener leaves.
The room becomes empty.
Another recording continues waiting.
THE ARCHIVE
The archive exists because the system requires memory.
But memory does not mean access.
The voice archive is not a streaming library.
The CCTV archive is not a gallery of participants.
A visitor cannot browse strangers.
A listener cannot choose which voice they receive.
A speaker cannot search for the person who eventually heard them.
The archive knows more than any participant does.
It knows:
where a voice entered.
how long it waited.
how far it traveled.
who received it as an anonymous encounter record.
what image was produced while it was heard.
what word remained afterward.
But no participant is given access to that whole relationship.
The system remembers the connection.
Each person experiences only one side.
CONSENT / PRIVACY
By leaving a message, you consent to the recording becoming part of Feel Found.
Do not state your full name, address, exact location, telephone number, or other identifying information you do not want included in the work.
Messages containing identifying information may be edited, withheld, anonymized where possible, or omitted.
A person's voice can itself be recognizable.
The project therefore cannot guarantee complete anonymity.
The recordings are more precisely described as:
unnamed voices.
Listeners are not intentionally provided with the speaker's name, telephone number, exact location, photograph, biography, or social profile.
Participation in The Other Side requires separate consent.
Before entering the recorded portion of the listening room, the listener is informed that CCTV footage of the encounter becomes part of the artwork.
The camera is visible.
Its placement is disclosed.
The consent form states how the recording and the listener's associated word may be stored, archived, reproduced, or exhibited.
The listener's written word remains connected to their CCTV encounter.
A participant may leave before beginning or stop participating during the encounter.
Consent to participate in one part of the project does not imply unlimited consent to every possible future use.
The work depends on asymmetry.
It does not depend on deception.
DOCUMENTATION
The work produces evidence.
Flyers.
Coordinates.
Dates.
Installation identifiers.
Telephone hardware.
Call records.
Waiting periods.
Distances.
Voices.
CCTV recordings.
Words attached to those recordings.
Empty rooms.
Disconnected lines.
Removed flyers.
Replacement instructions.
Voices still waiting.
Voices already heard.
Documentation should not attempt to reconstruct the missing people.
It should reveal the movement of the system.
Not solve its absences.
PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE
The project uses technologies designed to connect people.
Telephone numbers.
Extensions.
Voicemail.
Queues.
Routing.
Recorded voices.
Surveillance cameras.
Customer-service representatives.
Appointments.
Consent forms.
Waiting systems.
Archives.
A telephone ordinarily implies that somebody is available on the other end.
A camera ordinarily implies that somebody may be watching.
Here:
the person you hear cannot see you.
The person who may later see you cannot hear what you heard.
The representative has already left.
The caller is already gone.
The listener arrives too late.
The system is the only thing present for both.
It receives.
Stores.
Measures.
Routes.
Watches.
Pairs.
Remembers.
Disconnects.
The caller leaves a voice.
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