“Every Conversation I Never Overheard” – a second iteration forward.

Ryan Seslow, 2019, Multiple Channel Animated Video.

I feel that physical scale plays a role in the development, impact and sharing of works like this. I always ask myself, can it hold up on Instagram, Youtube or a website? The answer is obviously yes, but asking the question helps me give it further contexts to look into. There is an old outdated version / part of me that can still recall past teachers and mentors instructing that I shouldn’t share this new “work in progress” on the web until after I have shown it in a more traditional public art space. (How limiting) Thankfully, that is not my idea but one that was constantly shared with me (and the others around me) for many years. I never took that advice. I’m happy about that. I’m sure that I missed hearing a lot of the reasons for why or why not, and that’s also a good thing.

“Every Conversation I Never Overheard” puts an emphasis on the overstimulating visuals that I experience in my daily soundless travels through transit in NYC. As my ability to wear and use hearing aids degenerates rapidly I have been spending more and more time not wearing them at all, especially when I am alone and in transit. The less I hear, the more I see, and the more I see the more I hear inside. (re-read that last stanza) I see in narratives that seem to splice themselves together into a continuous sequence of scrolling communication. This is a first attempt at bringing together the visual aspect of the sentiment and experience.

*This art work is a part of the Ongoing Online Exhibition: “Communicating my Deaf & Hard of Hearing Self”

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