Infinite Jest

2020
Single copy performative record
Audiovisual documentation

‘Infinite Jest’ is a LP record in single copy presented as a performative installation inspired by the homonymous novel by the American author David Foster Wallace. 

The book, defined by critics as a postmodern encyclopedic novel, deals with topics such as depression, drug addiction, terrorism, the pervasiveness of entertainment and the role of consumerism in modern capitalist society. Beyond its thematic focus, on a stylistic level Infinite Jest is characterized by an ingenious  use of endnotes. There are 388 endnotes, some of which also have endnotes. Wallace employed this technique as a way of breaking up the linear narrative of the text. My version of infinite jest presents the same idea translated in another medium, as the performer listens to the record, the linear nature of the piece is interrupted by the sound of a tennis ball, after which he or she will hear some instructions pronounced by Google’s text-to-speech algorithm. These instructions function as a auditive score, instructing the listener/performer to move the stylus of the record player to a certain minute (for instance, move the stylus to minute 3:14). Since no indication regarding time is present on record players the listener/performer will never know precisely whether he or she put the stylus in the prescribed place. Furthermore, the instructions are distributed so that once the record is set in motion a performance is infinite. The listener/performer, therefore, is confronted with the impossibility of fulfilling the instructions: either he or she chooses to perform them, resulting in an infinite back and forth between the grooves of the record, or stops following them leaving the performance perpetually unfinished.

The piece is composed of the audio track of 388 videos dowloaded from youtube that relate to the themes of the book.