Tasseography
Adam Cooke & Liz Edwards
Teacup by ceramicist Wayne Clark
Sound in collaboration with Yann Seznec
Tasseography was a co-commission between northern bloc: Creative Technology Wales and Bangor Sound City, created for a pavilion on Bangor Pier.
Tea, and its place in past, present and future form the focus for this sound installation. The work seeks to conjure allusions of tasseography, the practice of fortune telling by interpreting the patterns formed by tealeaves in a cup. Using the language and symbolism of divination through the leaves, the piece suggests auditory pasts and futures.
Teacup stands as oracle, but the trustworthiness of the reading is to be questioned. Artifice, illusion and fakery are after all other aspects of pier life. Interacting with the cup (and tea leaves) generates audio, one side alluding to the past and the other suggesting the future.
