Annie Dunning

Third Ear Shells

2023

Many of us have had the experience of “listening to the ocean” in a shell. These sculptures consider this sonic experiment and the many associations between ears and shells. In Victorian times shells were the tools of spiritual mediums, a listening device to hear the messages of the dead; particularly those who had died at sea. The shiny, polished, ear-edge of my Third Ear Shells sculptures evokes the gesture of shell-to-ear touch and the reaching toward imaginative and speculative realms. The title references experimental musician Maryanne Amacher’s “third ear” compositions which vibrate the listener’s ear in such a way that it begins to produce sound as well as receive it. These objects have the potential to reflect both past cultural connections of shells and ears, as well as contain future, generative possibilities. They contain an expectation and a memory of sound.