Inspired by the mechanism of birdsongs, Second Hand Smoke sends out “love letters” mellifluously told through tweets.
Love incites an auditory reaction in birds and an aesthetic reaction in humans. While human beings display an innate and involuntary emotional reaction such as blushing, birds biologically develop and refine their mating calls during maturation. Through an investigation into sonic communications and expressions of birds, Singapore-based artist Denise Yap imagines mating calls made by human beings signalling to their future lovers in Second Hand Smoke.
At the centre of the work are two queer adolescent characters, Zion and Cae, situated on Twitter. While Zion and Cae tweet out their delicate and reticent affections for each other in the form of texts and GIFs, Yap invites us to be a stealthy reader of love letters plotting a sensual narrative.
Second Hand Smoke will be performed by Zion(@zion_newgrowth) and Cae (@cae_newgrowth) on Twitter. For a week tweets will be sent out every day at 12pm (GMT + 1) / 7pm (GMT + 8) from either of them, which will be responded to by the other on the following day. Their twitter profile pictures are left as default images for the characters to build an image of themselves through conversation. The conversation between Zion and Cae has been taken from Yap’s upcoming publication New Growth.
Presented by HERVISIONS OUT of TOUCH probes ways in which screen-based dialogues remediate the lack of touching in the absence of physical connection. Second Hand Smoke responds to the theme of OUT of TOUCH through imagined intimacy in a virtual and fictional world.
OUT of TOUCH
Denise Yap: Second Hand Smoke