The sound notebook “Harmony of Happiness (Never Reached)” is my first work using music-box mechanisms taken from greeting cards. They play eight different melodies chosen by me. They are characterized by a reduced sound and squeaky tones, and play fragments of songs associated with common moments worth celebrating, such as birthdays or holidays.

The notebook form allows the user to listen to the melodies one by one, but also together. Opening the first page and unfolding the notebook activates the harmony of happiness, and flipping the following pages turns on new melodies. When played individually, they are banal and absurd, even contradicting their supposed associations. By communing with all of them at once, condensed and up close, can we hear the “unreachable” harmony and experience full happiness? “Harmony of Happiness (Never Reached)” is an activity that somehow undermines this thesis.

The photograph is an autonomous rescaling of the original object, a material technology that does not exist in reality, a prototype of an instrument, an invention. A futuristic hybrid suspended in an undefined space that cannot be launched. A frozen “Harmony of Happiness (Never Reached)”.

Author: Anna Zaradny