AA Times, Feb 11, 2011
“Translated by” is an exhibition composed of excerpts from 11 novels in the form of audio tracks with supporting images and 11 seats to sit for visitors, chosen by the writers themselves. It is happening at the AA Gallery at the moment and will take you 93 minutes and 26 seconds to listen through all the exhibits. It would be curious to know how many people did manage to listen all the sound tracks in our busy architecture school. Seeing that travelling through space and time involves the need to indulge oneself with a sequence of events at different places and paces.
In the exhibition, the visitor is coerced to find a relationship between different mediums. It is made explicit in the exhibition description to follow the numbered tracks and numbered images, imposing certain rigidity upon the experience.
Sound as a single medium to transport people metaphysically through different spaces and time is a fluid transition. Carefully selected images and objects are there to disturb this smooth shift. They become the transition between the exhibition space and the space of the story. Moreover, the transition between sound tracks. One amusing aspect of the seats is that, most of them are faced towards the wall, possibly with the intention to isolate the particular event. However, the effect of shifting through different spaces is heightened at track 9, where the designated seat is the rotatable office chair. Sitting there facing towards the setting of track 11, a plastic chair with grime and a pile of tin cans (if you have done it before 9), the experience is somewhat confusing.
Imagine listening to someone in Brooklyn with your headphone and yet the story in West Vancouver where the world is ending from track 11 resounding in your head. The experience is possibly best described as “winding a mix tape of space and time.”
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