ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the concepts of otherness, subjectivity, and authorship in the works of Juan Muñoz (Madrid 1953-Ibiza 2001), paying particular attention to Wasteland, 1986 and Ventriloquist Looking at a Double Interior, 1988, both of which feature a ventriloquist dummy as a central character. Provocatively, Muñoz handmade dummy is based on Charlie McCarthy, the well-known dummy of the renowned ventriloquist Edgard Bergen. In both of these works, a ventriloquist dummy appears abandoned on a ledge, preceded, in Wasteland, by a vast, quarry-tiled floor. The installations invite the viewer to enter the work and extend an invitation to the viewer to lend voice to the inanimate sculpture. Indeed, Muñoz stated that he “would like the spectator to be able to move around the installation as an actor moves on stage.” This chapter relies on the concepts of projective spectatorship relies and schizophonia, while also drawing on aspects of Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and Muñoz’s own commentary in an effort to expand the current discourse around Muñoz’s use of sculptural props within large-scale installations.
