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site-specific sound installation: loudspeakers, microphones, cables, and light bulbs
The voices of detainees, interrogatees, and torture victims are not entirely silenced. During their detention-interrogation-torture, they are in fact required to speak up, talk, tell, or “sing.” Their stories and cries are often recorded for use as evidence, if the detainee is granted a trial. Alternatively, if he is released, once again the detainee may speak up, recounting his ordeal and making the experiences of detention and interrogation into a centerpiece of the narrative. Layers upon layers of voices, stories, songs, sighs, cries, and pleas are thus created, which seek out an attentive ear. Hearing in these cases is selective to begin with: the audience consists of authorized persons only, who are accustomed to hearing only what they are after. Even when the “story” is delivered in the form of memorandum, the tone, nuances, and many other elements are usually eliminated. The installation staged by musician and artist Ilan Green echoes these tones and shifts, although any attempt to capture the fragments emitted from the loudspeakers is doomed. The feedback causes broadcasting and reception to fail, and the echoing bits of information, words, and syllables block one another, and us. We are condemned to hear the voices but fathom only
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