Arturo Moya

Arturo Moya - Monster Game

Artist Biography:

 

Interactive sound installation of 22 soccer balls. Variable measures. 4.000 EUR each one. Author: Arturo Moya (2020-23) Hardware and firmware design: Riley García Voice: Elena Anaya 22 balls. Each one has a loudspeaker and an electronic device capable of detecting the movement. When the balls receive a kick, they project a voice that is broadcast around the room with the movement of the ball itself. The voice stops when the ball stops. The voice comes from Mary Tudor's 1939 thesis An experimental study of the effect of evaluative labeling of speech fluency. The research sought to prove that positive or negative reinforcement had a significant influence on the development of stuttering, a thesis advocated by her mentor, Wendell Johnson, who himself suffered from dysphemia. The study was based on two groups, one of fluent speakers and the other of infants who were already considered stutterers before the study. Each of them was reinforced positively or negatively, giving rise to four subgroups depending on the starting situation and the direction of the reinforcement. As a result of the study, some fluent children developed lifelong stuttering. The thesis was later known as the "Monster Study" or "Monster Experiment" because of its lack of ethical considerations. The locutions that reproduce the balls correspond to the transcriptions of the interviews that the author herself had with the 22 subjects submitted to the study. 22 balls, one for each child. Monster Game is part of "Violencias del decir" a framework that questions the invisible and formidable violence of speech, "All speech is violence, violence all the more fearsome because it is secret" says Maurice Blanchot in "La conversación infinita".