Janet Cardiff
«In Real Time»

Janet Cardiff's contribution to #10101 is a «Video Walk,» an original, immersive, site-specific art form. Museum visitors who wish to «do» Cardiff’s piece are given a small digital camcorder equipped with stereo headphones. It contains a tape that displays a short trip through the Museum, complete with a soundtrack featuring Cardiff’s voice and the sound of her footsteps traversing the Museum's galleries and architectural spaces. Viewers synchronize their journey through the Museum by lining up the onscreen images of the Museum with the «real thing» in front of them, essentially «following» Cardiff's recorded path as they move through the space. Along with ambient recorded sound, Cardiff has added sounds collaged from other sources, such as old movies and radio; music; and deliberately scripted passages. The result is a mesmerizing blend of reality and fiction, delivered in a form unlike anything else in contemporary art.

(source: 010101: Art in Technological Times, exhib. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2001.)