Transceiver (1996)

Plaster, paint, resin, brushed cotton

‘With a combined receiver and transmitter it can be difficult to tell whether the message we are hearing originates within the Transceiver itself or from elsewhere. When someone claims to be a medium relaying messages from the otherside, or from God, we are likely to suspect that it is they themselves who are the author of he messages, particularly since such allegedly otherworldly messages are often either trivial or trite. An oracle or medium can rarely tell us anything more profound about existence beyond the veil than that it is very nice there. God’s vicar his vicarious presence on earth can tell us what we have heard before, that God loves us, but not what we have never heard and could never imagine. Ventriloquism works because the animated figure, its mouth movements synchronized with the words we are hearing, is so obviously not the thing that is actually talking. Ventriloquist’s dummies resemble human beings but cannot, with their glassy eyes and clacking mouthparts, be mistaken for one. We can wonder at the illusion because it so obviously is an illusion.

In Transceiver the archetypal plug ugly ventriloquist’s dummy is presented as some kind of oracle or prophet, an enthusiast (i.e. one who is filled with the spirit of God); which has the advantage, for those of us waiting to hear the voice of God, of being immune from suspicious of charlatanism. Because dummies cannot speak we know that when they appear to appear to speak the words are coming from elsewhere, and since there is no sign of a ventriloquist here, we know that when the Transceiver begins to speak (or when we hear it speak, since it already appears to be in mid-oration) it’s voice will indeed be the voice of God. The problem is that Transceiver is completely silent.’

Simon Bill, 1996