What is Your Emergency?

(2024)

The placidly calm, feminine face of the original CPR manikin, Resusci-Anne, is mounted like a death mask on the wall. A nearby plaque instructs you to plug your ears, and place your forehead on hers. When you do so, the silent mask becomes audible: you can hear ‘her’ voice as though it is being telepathically communicated inside your head. The sound transmits a gust of breathy ASMR-style voice directly into your inner ear as she instructs you how to save your own life with CPR.

Resusci-Anne was invented in 1960 as a pedagogical tool for teaching the public how to save lives. Over the last several decades, CPR has come to be seen as a cure-all for sudden death, yet it is still largely ineffective: about one in ten people survive cardiac arrest. This piece envisions Resusci-Anne as a mythic symbol of the technoscientific promise of revival - allowing her to speak intimately and directly to the great allure and danger of that dream.

This piece was initially presented at the Reembodied Sound Symposium at EMPAC in Troy, NY.

9” x 6” x 30”

plastic, rubber, silicone, bone conduction transducer, amplifier and audio player, metal conduit