January 15, 1998 — February 07, 1998 76 Grand Street, New York Alexandros Psychoulis’s installation There is no place far enough for you to escape from images and the pain they caused you posited the viewer: What would happen if speech was interpreted automatically into images? What would happen if we could speak using somebody else’s set of images? Psychoulis described BLACK BOX the work for which he was awarded the Benesse Prize at the 1997 Venice Biennale as follows: “BLACK BOX is in short an automatic animator of speech. It consists of a video-wall, a microphone and a powerful computer. There are approximately 4,000 images stored in the computer (still and moving pictures) that correspond to an equal number of English words. The images belong to the mental space of the artist, in other words to a Greek male, named Alexandros Psychoulis, of thirty one years of age who lives in Athens.” Speaking into a microphone, the viewer’s words triggered the automatic projection on the video-wall. Using voice recognition software, the artist set up a structure in which the artist and the participant enter one another’s minds. The viewer/participant saw his/her thoughts through the artist’s bank of visual memories and the artist’s images sparked the participant’s thought patterns. BLACK BOX set up a collaboration between the artist and the viewer/participant, together creating the experience of the work of art.