TTC to air video confessions at subway stations
Posted June 22, 2012 6:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
“When I was 16, I gave my child up for adoption,” confesses an unnamed woman, while another, who’s engaged, admits to being obsessed with an ex-boyfriend.
These secrets, as well as almost 100 others, are part of Confessions Underground, a video-based art project that allows willing participants to record a private on-camera confession which will be aired on 300 TTC subway platform screens from July 2-15. They will appear every 10 minutes and show the confessors’ faces, but will not reveal their names.
Co-director of Labspace Studio John Loerchner and Laura Mendes came up with the art experiment. Loerchner said his company is quite surprised at how open people are and how much they want to get off their chests.
“I think almost the best part […] is the last three seconds or so, where they’re taking in what they just said, and a lot of them you can see that relief,” he told 680News. “It can be some really emotional moments.”
Some of the confessions are serious, including a woman who says, “I can’t go a day without using heroin,” and a man who says, “I didn’t actually want to be put in a situation to have to kill someone.”
Others, however, are downright silly.
“My confession is, I fart when I get nervous,” says a young woman.
People can still spill their secrets via online submission at confessionsunderground.com, or in a movable confession booth equipped with a video camera which has made its appearance in Toronto neighbourhoods.
The videotaped pieces will be seen by as many as a million TTC riders.
