Blue Girl is the first word pair of the memory test, and has been my ‘code name’ for this idea since I first learned about the memory test within the Milgram Experiment 5 years ago. So in a way this idea has been sitting on a shelf in my head (and various scribbled down lists in note books) for quite a while now. When I first heard about it I reached out to the Milgram Archive based at the Yale University Library and received the complete word pair list that was used in the experiment. So my idea for ‘Blue Girl’ was as vague as it can be, a video work using the word pair lists. Someone reading the list over and over, someone pronouncing the words filmed up close. Initially I was thinking of someone with a good mouth and a melodic accent, now in this lock-down Covid-19 reality I’ve decided to have a go and do it myself. I’ve done a video test during day and evening, and a few audio test. My window faces a fairly busy street in South London and my window are double glazed but they are British Brexit windows (not European German quality sound proof stuff). Anyway, I digress – my Zoom picks up the sound of buses, car music and my cheerfully social-distancing neighbourhood. So I’ve started to recording and filming late in the evening, but still with mixed results. While looking for solutions to record without too much background noise, I’ve started to work on my /ˈaks(ə)nt,ˈaksɛnt/ with clear articulation youtube videos and exercises such as this one:

Bah dah gah pah dah gah

Boh doh goh poh doh goh

Boo doo goo poo doo goo

Bee dee gee pee dee gee

Bay day gay pay day gay