MURMUR OF WORDS / MURMUR OF WOUNDS
University of North Florida
February 2008
University of North Florida
February 2008
“Let me roll in my wounds, through the heavy air and the sea; in my pains, through the silence of water and the harmful air; in the tortures which jeer at me, through their fiendish and billowy silence.”
– Arthur Rimbaud
– Arthur Rimbaud
During the first week of this second installation, the words on the water read simply: “MURMUR OF WORDS.” Then, for the second week, the piece was discreetly adjusted to read: “MURMUR OF WOUNDS” — the “R” removed from “WORDS,” a “U” and an “N” secretly added, creating in the change a subtle if forceful shift in tone and message.
Heard in the four-story stairwell of the library — its tall windows facing directly onto the words on the pond — there was an accompanying sound-collage composed of the recorded voices of 25 randomly selected library readers, all of them recording what they had been reading. Echoing throughout the stairway, the various voices were heard mingling into a murmur, while the poem on the pond was seen directly below (as if those words on the water were describing what was, at that very moment, being heard in the stairwell — a wounding murmur, a murmuring wound).
Heard in the four-story stairwell of the library — its tall windows facing directly onto the words on the pond — there was an accompanying sound-collage composed of the recorded voices of 25 randomly selected library readers, all of them recording what they had been reading. Echoing throughout the stairway, the various voices were heard mingling into a murmur, while the poem on the pond was seen directly below (as if those words on the water were describing what was, at that very moment, being heard in the stairwell — a wounding murmur, a murmuring wound).
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