Lavinia Greenlaw
Audio Obscura
13 September - 23 October 2011
St Pancras International Station
London

In the busy public spaces of London's St Pancras International Station, everyday dramas are constantly being acted out; people waiting or rushing, engaged in conversation or lost in their own thoughts.

In Audio Obscura, equipped with headphones, a visitor would enter the crowd and overhear voices around them. What did that woman mean? Did he really say that? Does she realise what she is saying? They might wish they hadn't listened or they might want to know more...

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"In a station, we are forced into proximity. We observe one another yet behave as if being in a crowd confers invisibility. We tend to assume that we are neither overheard nor overlooked.

"The intimacy of a phone conversation overpowers the reality of the crowd. Moving through a crowd chatting to a friend does the same. Listening to music can absorb us to the point that we are unguarded about what our face, or body, might express."

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"The piece's strangeness is in its location. The railway station is revealed as a kind of theatrical arena, and as we look at it from between our big, black headphones, we and the passengers become mutual objects of curiosity. Our mode of walking, very different from the self-absorbed browsers of phone and newspaper, marks us out as a different kind of user of this public space - different to the workers, tiredly serving lunchtime customers at Yo Sushi! and KFC, at Costa and M & S, or the frantic commuters rushing for trains, briefcases and shopping bags swinging wildly from side to side."

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"That woman in a blue business suit scanning the departure boards with barely contained excitement. Has she got that promotion? Made that deal? Bought that flat? No. Look again. It's not departures but arrivals that hold her attention. Who's she waiting for? Lover? Child? A friend she's lined up for a night out? No. Not friend. Not night out. The excitement is too much. She's grinning. Almost laughing. Then she looks around to check no-one's noticed. But you have. And you've noticed the bored teenager by the newspaper stand, clutching a bouquet of irises."

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