In 1999, Janet Cardiff created The Missing Voice (Case Study B), an audio narrative that takes visitors on a guided walk through the former Whitechapel Library, today part of Whitechapel Gallery. Commissioned and produced by Artangel, the narrative takes the listener from Whitechapel Library to Liverpool Street Station, through a series of mysterious and unresolved stream-of-consciousness scenarios.
Cardiff has noted her disjointed relationship to the narrator she voices. “I saw the woman in the story not only as alienated from herself, but also searching for herself through this voice, play-acting, creating false dangers and love affairs, wanting her story dramatized,” Cardiff writes. “At the same time, her voiceover, the one that speaks in the third person, removes her from the story, and keeps her at a safe distance.”
Listen to the piece here.