ventwittoquisms

 The HECTOR CAN’T TALK Talk Show

“The Waffle Shop’s first talk show hosted by a ventriloquist dummy who’s reticent to perform in public.”

The HECTOR CAN’T TALK Talk Show features Pittsburgher T. Foley as the interpreter for a ventriloquist dummy who wants his own talk show, but is reluctant to perform in public. Foley is an artist already known for “throwing voices” via her cell-phone based public art project, Locally Toned (www.locallytoned.org). At midnight on Friday June 10^th at the Waffle Shop in East Liberty, the artist will lend her ear and voice to Hector, helping him to get his start show business (while she mines content for new artworks).

     Public participation will be encouraged during the one-hour show, en-restaurant and online, to crowdsource creative content for a new series of videos about issues of voice (to be later enacted by Foley and the dummy in a studio setting). The online audience will be invited to help script a video short entitled VENTWITTOQUISMs, by tweeting verbal responses to hashtags issued by Hector on various themes. The live audience will be prompted to participate on stage, as guests, helping the artist and the dummy prepare dramaturgy for STAND UP (a video featuring monologues poached from Craigslist personal ads). Select content developed within The HECTOR CAN’T TALK Talk Show will appear as part of Foley’s contribution to the Gertrude’s Lot exhibition in September at the Andy Warhol Museum curated by Eric Shiner (part of the 2011 Pittsburgh Biennial).

     *Participate in the project (or follow the dummy) at twitter.com/ventwittoquisms.