The work was created during the Sipola Residency in Finland and installed in a former cinema.
It grew out of a childhood habit of humming along with a vacuum cleaner — a simple and slightly absurd action that needs neither politics nor new rules. Men hum, women hum, children hum, and even dogs sometimes join in. The pitch and volume may differ, but the feeling can be strangely magical and uplifting.
In the installation, a vacuum cleaner blew air through birthday party blowers, transforming the familiar machine into a sound-producing object. Visitors could step forward and blow into a microphone connected to sound effects, performing in front of the audience, while others remained seated in the original cinema seats.
Once, while wandering through apartment buildings with friends to look at Riga from the rooftops, we found a discarded vacuum cleaner. At three in the morning, we spun it around by its cord. We did not manage to hum together that time, but once again the vacuum cleaner became something special in our lives.
