Millionth

James Chinneck


This sound-work, 'Millionth', has been constructed simply by using a telephone and audio-recording equipment. James Chinneck systematically recorded individuals saying the word 'hello' when they first answered their telephone.

He charted his telephonic journeys through 227 different countries, working on a ration of 1:1000000 to condense the world's population to a total of just 6348 people. Each individual "hello" has been edited into a sequence in which every country appears in descending order of population size, one after the other, resulting in a 43 minute audio track.