The Automated Prayer Machine

Description:

The Automated Prayer Machine was a multimedia performance with musical instruments, recorded audio, projected video, and low-watt radio broadcasting by Annabelle Chvostek and Anna Friz. The work was conceived in response to the sense of despair over world events; in particular, the US-led invasion of Iraq. It was also inspired in part by the transmission properties of a prayer wheel where wind, water, human, or even electronically powered wheels are believed to activate a written prayer or mantra.

Chvostek and Friz proposed a shift from apathy to empathy and from indifference to compassion by recasting radio as capable of manifesting a common space for unfolding human hopes and aspirations. Their performance was a layered soundscape that included sampled right wing talk radio and voices of friends and acquaintances, live violin and accordion, and spoken elements. 

The Automated Prayer Machine was conceived and created for the 2004 HTMlles Festival and produced by Studio XX. 

Video documentation is available upon request.