William Engelen

“MOSHI MOSHI“, 2010
4 channel sound installation in public space

Moshi moshi is the word used to greet friends and acquaintances on the telephone. It is said to have been used in one of the first successful telephone experiments in Japan and then, along with the phone itself, was accepted throughout society as the polite telephone greeting. Moshi moshi is derived from mosu mosu which means something like ‘I will tell you something’. William Engelen named his four-track sound installation for The World in your Hand after this greeting that is used exclusively in telephony. The installation is sited in a public space in Dresden. Engelen, who is at present in Tokyo, made calls to Japanese-speaking people there and asked them questions. What is your relationship to your cell phone and your own voice? Which noises or sounds do you make in an everyday conversation to signalize particular emotions? The result is a wordless sound work built up out of the soundscape of telephone conversations of the people of Tokyo.