Christine Wallers & Steve Peters:

I WISH


WHAT IS (ARE) YOUR DEEPEST WISH(ES) FOR THE WORLD AT THIS MOMENT?

Christine Wallers (artist) and Steve Peters (sound) invite everyone to send a written response of any length or in any style conveying your vision of a better life on Earth for all beings.

THE FUTURE BEGINS WITH THE WORDS "I WISH..."

Your heart-felt, creative, visionary wishes will be recorded as spoken text and incorporated into a site-specific installation at the historic San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico (near Albuquerque) in September, 2000. We will include all wishes sent, so long as they are sincere, thoughtful, and respectful of all people. If you have children or work with them, we hope you will encourage them to contribute as well.

Deadline for responses ist July 1, 2000 (more or less).

Send your responses to:
Steve Peters c/o Nonsequitur, PO Box 344, Albuquerque, NM 87103, USA. - nonseq@flash.net
Christine Wallers: cwallers@hotmail.com - Steve Peters: nonseq@flash.net

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I WISH ...

Greetings,

For all of you who contributed "wishes" for our installation at the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico - we thank you for your participation. After much hard work, the piece, called "The Alchemy of Desire" is open and attracting many visitors. The responses have been most encouraging.

The visual component of the show is a series of thirteen large, spun brass bowls which were manufactured to our specifications. These rest upon steel plates, which are suspended from the ceiling of the church.

Both the bowls and the steel were hand finished by Christine. They are suspended quite precisely, gradually rising in height and in an arc along the walls of the church and around the corners of the transept.

The sound is derived entirely from the voices of thirty two local people who volunteered to whisper all of the wishes sent in by over 300 people from around the world. These are heard in two ways: first, through six contact transducers attached to the ceiling, with up to four voices heard randomly in each one (these are barely audible); second, via contact transducers attached to the bottom of each bowl. In the latter, single voices are heard speaking the wishes one at a time. These are heard clearly coming through the first bowl in the altar of the church, and then through each successive bowl, and with each bowl another layer of processing was added to transform the voices into ringing tones that match the overtones and harmonics of the bowls. By the time they reach the final bowls at the entrance to the church, they sound like low ringing gongs. The sound moves in a wave out from the first bowl to the last, washing up at your feet as you enter.

In addition to the visual and sound aspects, all of the wishes sent are contained in a big book at the show, with blank pages inserted for visitors to add their own wishes for the world to those you have all sent.

We think this would make a nice web page: the wishes fading in and out one at a time on the screen, with the possibility for viewers to add their own, along with the sound and some images. Does anyone out there want to sponsor this?

Thanks again to all of you for your participation and encouragement. It has been an amazing experience for us to create a respectful and safe context in which to present all of your visionary wishes, and it has been inspiring to know that you are all out there thinking about how to make the world a better place for all beings.

With much gratitude,
Steve Peters & Christine Wallers
25 Sep 2000

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