Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night

Ghost(ed) Notes is a site-responsive mural adapts the concept of ghost notes, musical symbols for notes with no defined pitch. Although they have a rhythmic presence when played, ghost notes make very little sound. Kim couples this musical reference with the colloquial term “ghosted,” the act of being cut off from communication without explanation. The artist adapts the staff lines used in written music—which typically have five lines—from the sign for the staff in ASL made by dragging four fingers horizontally across the front of the body with the thumb tucked. The hand-painted staff lines appear to dodge the notes, alluding to the interpersonal experience that can occur between friends, romantic partners, and the institutions and social spaces that purposefully and harmfully avoid accommodating Deaf and disabled people.