Beginning to feel like this isn’t a pronunciation channel at all
On April 14, 2010, The Pronunciation Book uploaded the first video of its series dedicated to informing viewers how to pronounce what could be considered a “challenging” word, phrase, or brand name in American English. The necessity for this service predates the Internet, but online search engines have made answering the question “How do I say ______?” easier than ever before. The text we read and write, copy and paste, often remains on the digital screen and the methods in which people communicate are increasingly nonverbal. Apps and networking sites favor images, emojis, and 140 characters over the spoken word. But with the aide of Pronunciation Book and other tools like it, a speaker could avoid the tragedy of sounding like a fool at parties during face-to-face conversations before using a word they certainly understand but would otherwise hesitate to say.
Pronunciation Book followed a simple template. The videos are comprised of a single static image. A word is displayed in black Helvetica lettering on a white background; text dominates the frame accompanied only by a copyright notice centered along the bottom edge in faint grey letters. The displayed word is read three times with slightly varying speeds and intonations. A new video was reliably posted each day until the project’s planned finale on September 24, 2013. The YouTube pages remain publicly available and as it currently stand there are 800+ videos with 50+ million views in total. While the pages are no longer actively updated by the author, user comments continue to be added to the videos, and thus further layers of meaning.
Individually, the videos each fulfill a simple purpose within a short 10 – 13 second run time, but by scrolling over the entire Pronunciation Book catalog the viewer will find a mirror to popular culture and self-consciousness. Many of the words featured in the videos are names of exotic sounding luxury brands, which when clustered together without any glossy product images lose some of their appeal. The videos are an extension of earlier text-based works by conceptual artists including Jenny Holzer or Barbara Kruger. Like these artists, Pronunciation Book’s creator uses restricted means and repetition to convey a message. That message can also be seen as a critique of capitalist values and the posturing required keep pace with the rest of the crowd, though less damning than that of Kruger or Holzer.
There are also parallels to the post-conceptual paintings of Christopher Wool, in which the artist stenciled provocative words and phrases onto oversized white canvases. Alone against a white background, the words become images. This is just as true for the large canvases as it is in the small window displaying the pronunciation videos. Devoid of a definition, the words shown in the videos take on new significance for the viewer as a label, warning, or command. When a random selection of words in arranged in a random order, the result takes on the qualities of sound poetry. An example using some handpicked favorite words:
Giclee Quetzalcoatl Quvenzhané
Gif Ralph Fiennes Deus ex machina
Unlike the work of earlier conceptual artists such as Kruger or Wool, to whom this Pronunciation Book is certainly indebted, this piece did not publicly debut in an established gallery or institution. It was posted anonymously online and it is likely that the first visitors to Pronunciation Book came upon it through sincere searches for words and how to say them. Quickly, more users began to take notice and soon grew a cult-like popularity that spawned imitations and parodies. The most successful of which is Pronunciation Manual, a YouTube channel that closely mimics the same style-guide but dramatically mispronounces the words, often with hilarious results. The original channel and its spoofs were featured on blogs, in magazines, and even on The Ellen Show, further adding momentum to the meme.
There are a few instances when this style is altered. The first is a sequence of English alphabet letters Aa – Zz started on September 12, 2010. Then, exactly two years after the first video was added, on April 14, 2012, the narrator begins to use words and phrases in complete sentences. The artist’s frustrations with his self-imposed restrictions become obvious in these extended videos. There are small experiments with form and stabs at humor. In a video posted on June 21, 2012 titled “How to Say Sorry to Your Girlfriend,” instead of speaking the expected phrase instead the reader says “I’m sorry that I let you do this to me.” The usage sentences include narrative elements and hint at the what is to come in what will be a deliberately surreal ending to the work. While the strength and merits of an artwork cannot be judged in data metrics, it is worth noting that these longer videos have the least number of page views and the least compelling viewer comments.
For years the identity of the creator remained a mystery. It was presumed he was the same man with the unemotional reading voice and by reading through the full list of pronounced words other clues emerge and an image of the narrator can be formed. A/S/L = 20s, Male, New York-based. He has a developed palette of highbrow and lowbrow tastes. Maybe he wears contacts or owns a cat or is attractive. Maybe he isn’t.
As Pronunciation Book’s popularity grew, theories emerged about who could be behind the videos. The YouTube account was maintained anonymously and the artist(s) went through pains to keep their identity secret by using false information in the profile and domain registration. Journalists including Gawker’s Adrian Chen and Max Read began investigating and enlisted other fans to find the person or people responsible for the work. In the summer of 2013, during the final months of the project, the artist chose to end the work by inserting cryptic messages into the final videos along with a 77-day countdown to the last post. This exit strategy only fanned the fervor. With the unavoidable conclusion of being found out looming, the artist agreed to an exclusive interview with Susan Orlean for The New Yorker magazine. He revealed himself as Tom Bender, a 30-year-old Princeton alumni working by day as VP of Product Development for HowCast.com. While Bender was primarily responsible for Pronunciation Book, he worked alongside friend and longtime-collaborator Jacob Bakkila, the artist behind Twitter phenomenon and cult-status meme, @Horse_ebooks.
After the identity of the artists had been revealed and they had publicly ended their famous projects, the work lost much of its portentousness. There was no longer an anticipation to see the next daily post although the pages remain available online. But in many ways, the work had ended months before the final video, as soon as Bender strayed from his template and began the countdown. The concept became dilute; the idea lost its power. To quote the aesthetic writer and artist Sol LeWitt,
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
The very last YouTube video completely departs from the standard Pronunciation Book style. The word displayed is “horse_ebooks” and after it is repeated the standard three times a young woman in an asymmetrical white dress appears before a seamless white background. Her very presence breaks down the safety and order of the Pronunciation Book world. In the video she recites a strange monologue that introduces the story of Bear Stearns Bravo (BSB), the next artistic venture from Bender and Bakkila.
Bear Stearns Bravo is an alternative reality game (ARG) set in 2007 – 2008 amidst a warped parallel universe to the U.S. financial crisis. In the game, a gang of government regulators interact with corporate employees and one unhinged C.E.O in with an abstract goal of thwarting corruption. BSB is similar to a “choose your own adventure” story and was split into two chapters, the first was available for free and the second installment cost $7 to play. Bender and Bakkila claim to have been working on Bear Stearns Bravo for years, but there is no evidence of this in the earliest pronunciation videos. According to the artists, the YouTube and Twitter accounts were intended to be viral marketing for the game, but Bear Stearns Bravo failed to achieve the engagement levels set by its predecessors. A possible reason is that @horse_ebooks and Pronunciation Book both had the classic trappings of a meme, and once they hit their peak the public lost interest.
Perhaps the audience simply wasn’t interested in the ARG’s convoluted story. While @horse_ebooks and Pronunciation Book required only seconds to enjoy, it is possible the third and final installment of the work was too ambitious, or alienated its audience by requiring a greater investment of attention and monetary payment. Unlike BSB, the YouTube videos and twitter posts also could be blank slates for viewers to infuse with their own interpretations. Pronunciation Book was able to attract an audience regardless of culture, class, or even language divides. Ultimately, the disappointment of Bear Stearns Bravo is irrelevant in order to appreciate the accomplishment of Pronunciation Book.
During its first two years Pronunciation Book showed endurance of an artist and dedication to a concept by uploading new content online every 24 hours. Similar acts of repetition can be seen in On Kawara’s Today series, in which the artist obeys his own strict rules and produces a painting of the date on which it was created. There are visual similarities as well, as the paintings all use the Roman alphabet, solid-colored Gil Sans letters, and a contrasting solid background.
Yet the distinctions separating the two pieces are stark. The pronunciation videos are not tied to time or sequence; they were produced using Final Cut Pro or similar non-linear digital editing software, and by using the original video as a template the artist could make updates in seconds. A month’s worth of output could have been prepared in a single evening and then uploaded later. Whereas Kawara took on the time intensive task of crafting each painting by hand.
When asked in his New Yorker interview about why he chose to end the project, Bender is quoted as saying, “No one wants to work on a painting forever. When it's done, it's done. We're ready for the experience of whatever this next piece is." It is easy to sympathize with his statement, but Kawara did commit himself to the Sisyphean burden of producing the Today paintings for half a century until until his death in 2014. Of course, all artists have unique goals for their work and practice and cannot be expected to commit single-mindedly to one concept. Doing so could be seen as refusal to evolve. Or does the comparison of these two works ask the question: Are the values of two artists representative of the time and space in which their work was first conceived?
There are other questions that emerge when considering the evolution of conceptual art as it moves into the digital space. Does Internet art require less personal investment from the artist? Does the artist’s intention carry a greater or lesser value when it is so easily accessible to so many viewers?
One of the most entertaining byproducts of the artist’s choice to upload the videos to YouTube (rather than directly to an artist website or screen the work in a physical space) is that YouTube acts as a public forum for viewers to question, applaud, mock, and cast hate within the comments section. Some users sensed an audible pretension in the male reader’s voice and openly trolled the idea of learning how to speak ‘correctly’ in the first place. There are countless messages from viewers that “just dont get it”. Even during the stretch when Bender needed a break and simply posted the letters Aa through Zz, the comments are incensed. Though the project may have officially concluded, as long as the YouTube account remains publicly accessible it and the viewer comments will be a reflection of man’s complicated relationship to technology as a simultaneous obstruction and bridge connecting people with one another. See comments below.
