Broke Down Girl is a dollhouse sound installation which rejects and subverts the objectification of women and girls as dolls. The dollhouse is prepared with hidden tiny speakers, including 8 pairs of earbuds, one set of headphones, and one intercom speaker. Each of the speakers features one of the following categories of sound: music box recordings, Edison talking doll recordings, 19th-20th century wax cylinder home recordings, wax cylinder pop songs, and text read aloud by Raegan Harryman, age 10.
Sound Sources
• Music box recordings
• Edison talking doll recordings 1888-1890
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
• There Was a Little Girl
• Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
• Little Jack Horner
• Jack and Jill
• Hickory, Dickory, Dock
• Wax Cylinder home recordings, 1890 – 19??
• Pop songs
• “A Broken Doll” 1916 by Clifford Harris
• “The Little Tin Soldier or The Little Rag Doll” 1922
• “Little Cotton Dolly” 1916 by The Criterion Quartet
• “I Want a Doll” 1919 by Billy Murray
• “Pet Names” 1908 by George M. Cohan
Read by Raegan Harryman, age 10:
• phrases from doll commercials (1960s)
• viral video comments
• “The Magic Toyshop” by Angela Carter
• “Broken Fragile Doll” poem by Breana Tavaglione, age 15
• “The Broken Doll” 1894 by Douglas Rawson, Guy C. Rawson
• “A Broken Doll” 1916 by Clifford Harris
• Raegan’s personal thoughts on the objectification of women & girls as dolls
Breana Tavaglione is a musician and sound artist from Riverside, California, whose primary musical interest is recording and experimenting with sound. Breana graduated from Mills College ‘16 BA Music Composition with an Emphasis in Media Technology and Electronic Music. She utilizes recording as a means to paint with sound, creating an immersive sensory experience in which she deconstructs conceptual themes in order to convey a specific mood or aesthetic, transporting listeners to an alternative sonic landscape. Breana is currently a student in the Experimental Sound Practices MFA program at CalArts.
Broke Down Girl was installed in the WaveCave from April 3rd to April 10th, 2017.