Jacki Apple
Bedtime Stories, Lullabies, and Other Lies

This installation consisting of audiotapes, written text, color xerox photographs, and “settings” explored the relationships between personal and cultural “fictions” and between sexual roles and expectations. Apple created a sound collage of pre-recorded songs (lyrics by Apple, score and performance by Zephryn) and “stories” (read by Apple via tape recorders placed around the room) which faded in and out of each other as on moved in the space. The “stories” were meant to frame events and emotions like “snapshots,” while sequential narrative photographs reflected the time and space experience of these events. One “setting” showed a teddy bear seated in an overstuffed easy chair, next to a bookcase with personal items on the shelves and a tape recorder telling a “story.” The viewer was invited to settle down and listen.

Excerpted from Brentano, R., & Savitt, M. (1981). 112 Workshop, 112 Greene Street: History, artists & artworks. New York: New York University Press.