Description
Au rythme de Pénélope / Penelope Speaks is an assemblage made up of a modified, vintage, portable reel-to-reel tape player installed on the wall. Equipped with a manual crank attached to the hub of the take-up reel, when turned by the viewer, it feeds a quarter-inch magnetic tape loop past the playback head. The reel-to-reel deck stands upright with its speakers beside it on a shelf.
A several-meters-long tape loop is threaded through a series of 8-inch screw-hooks screwed directly into the wall above the deck, creating a rough oval shape. The loop carries a recording of the artist reciting a text she wrote. The voice is played back faster or slower depending on how quickly the viewer turns the handle.
Recorded audio (written and read by Karen Trask):
Penelope speaks.
You heard that my name is Penelope and that Ulysses came home and that was the end of the story.
They told you that I wove by day and then unwove by night.
They told you that it was my strategy for waiting, for putting off time and for keeping order in the kingdom until Ulysses came back from that terrible war and those long years of getting lost on his way home.
But, I am here and I was doing this long before I knew Ulysses.
He has come and gone many times and I have had many names and still I sit pulling and winding threads, this one to that one.
By day I weave sense of it all, by night, it all comes apart and then, I start over again. My voice is in your hands.
—
Pénélope ou l’histoire sans fin. Vous avez entendu dire que mon nom est Pénélope, qu’Ulysse revint de voyage et que l’histoire s’arrête là. On vous a dit que je tissais le jour l’ouvrage et le défaisais la nuit. On vous a dit que c’était ma stratégie pour attendre, pour suspendre le temps, pour maintenir l’ordre au royaume jusqu’à ce qu’Ulysse rentre enfin, après avoir interminablement erré suite à une guerre terrible.
Mais, je suis ici et faisais cela longtemps avant de connaître Ulysse. J’ai eu plusieurs noms. Lui est parti et revenu plusieurs fois et encore je tire et embobine les fils, celui-ci, celui-là. Le jour, je tisse un sens à tout; la nuit tout se défait, puis je recommence. Ma voix est entre vos mains.
Statement
Au rythme de Pénélope / Penelope Speaks is a revisionist reading of the story of Penelope, the mythic figure from Homer’s Odyssey. The text read by the artist gives Penelope a voice and sets her story straight. She is not weaving and unweaving because she is waiting for Ulysses. It is what she has been doing throughout time, before the arrival of Ulysses. The voice challenges the traditional narrative that celebrates Ulysses as the hero, while relegating Penelope to a passive, domestic role. It’s a playful critique of this dichotomy, where Ulysses embarks on epic adventures, while Penelope quietly sustains the household.
Au rythme de Pénélope / Penelope Speaks invites the audience to take part in “keeping the story alive.” The hand-crank mechanism puts the pace and rhythm of the narrative in their hands. When they stop, the story falls silent—emphasizing their role in sustaining its momentum. The circular motion of the tape echoes the cyclical nature of time and storytelling versus the linear time of Ulysses’ war exploits. It links Penelope’s weaving and spinning to the act of storytelling itself. Just as her loom became a symbol of her agency and resistance, the act of cranking becomes a metaphor for participation, continuity, and the endless weaving of tales through human action and memory.
Don Goodes & Karen Trask, 2024