Tail of the Hen mirrors the essence of scientists' work at the Boulby Underground Laboratory (UK) With 1,100m of rock in between the ground it makes an ideal site to study dark matter using ultra-sensitive detectors and ultra-low radiation techniques, to try to catch the faint breath of a particle wind, sent blowing across space from a distant constellation: The Swan. This constellation contains Deneb which is derived from the Arabic word for "tail", from the phrase ذنب الدجاجة Dhanab al-Dajājah, or "tail of the hen", hence the title of the series, in which Voice 172 Hertz is the first part.

In the first part of the Tail of the Hen series, we are searching for the occurrence of felt human presence, experienced at a distance and mediated through the human voice. Like dark matter in physics, this felt presence and intimacy cannot be proven, grasped, nor directly studied. Paradoxically, scientists descend into underground labs far away from the sun in order to study stars. Likewise, we are studying the paradox of intimacy and presence potentially taking place between two people physically separated by space, each looking out through different windows, out of different perspectives on the world.

The artwork uses phone technology in a radically different way. With your own voice as a vehicle, you will descend through the ground. What you’ll experience depends on where you’re located, and what landscape or built structures are hiding below you.