Mesmer—Secrets of the Human Frame

1991
Toni Dove
Both abstract and sensual, sci-fi and reality, Mesmer traces the way we construct human identity and subjectivity, and reflects the images we have created of our relationship to technology: "There was a story to tell, and the story was about the century we're about to exit. It starts with Thomas Edison, the birth of cinema, the phonograph. With Freud and psychoanalysis. With the gothic novel and the Industrial Revolution. And the story is about how we changed as the century changed. This story is about building an Android." (from the work) With a soundtrack by the artist composed entirely from electronically processed vocal sound. Commissioned by New American Radio.