"Araply"

This sound installation consists of a lo-fi version of the ‘sound shower’ public artwork on display in Oslo airport, which bombards people with random words as they stand underneath it. Araply is a play on the name of the Norwegian author Ari Behn and the Norwegian words for umbrella (Paraply) and parrot (Ari). Ari Behn is a Norwegian author (married to Princess Martha Louise of Norway) who is often ridiculed for talking in a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual manner, which sounds impressive and articulate, but is ultimately devoid of content.

The work is a satirical swipe at both Ari Behn and the artist responsible for the Oslo airport sound shower, attacking nonsense disguised as meaning.
Araply consists of a speaker housed within an umbrella and connected to a computer, which assembles sentences from 200 phrases Behn has used when speaking in the media. The software was designed so that no two sentences are repeated, and was programmed to reassemble words at random, mimicking Behn’s style of speaking.

Materials used: Umbrella, Speaker, 100 sound samples of Ari Behn recorded from an interview, Computer, Software to randomize sound samples.
First shown at Strykejernet Kunstskole Christmas show 2003.