Screened Calls & Slow Portraits

Using Skype as a medium for generating temporally destructive portraits and self-portraits, Hallier redefines portraiture for the digital age. The show documents and comments on 77 long-distance conversations Hallier conducted online with 7 friends and family members throughout one year using the software Skype*. The economy and facility of exchange are offset by the periodic disruptions in the flow of information that reveal the underlying technology of an otherwise seemless medium.

The installation deconstructs and recreates these conversations on two parallel walls, where two projections talk to one another through sound and images. In one projection, Hallier’s interlocutors follow each other in chronological order. In the other, the artist herself appears conversing with each person.