Apichatpong Weerasethakul

For the fourth and last project in Titan’s solo project series, Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents Acoustic Birds (for Titan), a work that) poses a poetic commentary on the phone booth, a decayed communication automaton from a previous world, transformed into a resting perch for inquisitive birds. Creating a contrast between the industrial, man-made booth and the natural world, the story within the triptych suggests an unexplained, mysterious energy. For Titan, Weerasethakul intervenes with the original function of the pay phone, transforming it into an oddity that discreetly stands in the middle of everyday life in the city. Acoustic Birds (for Titan) marks the closing project in the series, as New York City has announced the imminent removal of its phone booths.

Acoustic Birds (for Titan) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul is the fourth intervention within the Titan’s solo project series. Composed as a tripytch of three panels, Acoustic Birds portrays three colorful birds, as they alight on the ledges of perforated acoustic panels, which are often used to dampen and absorb noise. Balanced on the broken panels, in conversation with each other, the birds gaze through the interior of the phone booth, encountering the secret spaces within.

Working in the space between cinema and contemporary art, Apichatpong Weerasethakul creates installations, videos, short and feature films that are often non-linear and transmit a strong sense of dislocation and otherworldliness. In 1994, Weerasethakul earned his BA in architecture from Khon Kaen University in Thailand. In 1998, he received his MFA in Filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as an Honorary Doctorate from the same institution in 2011. In 1999, he co-founded Kick the Machine Films, a company that has produced many of his own films as well as other experimental Thai films and videos that could not find support under the established Thai film industry. Apichatpong Weerasethakul lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand and is represented by Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London; Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong; SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo; Seescape, Chiang Mai; ShanghArt, Shanghai; and kurimanzutto Mexico City / New York.