Books

London Word Festival: The Quiet Volume

Jon Davis | Monday 18 April, 2011 13:09

The Quiet Volume by Ant Hampton & Tim Etchells at London Word Festival from londonwordfestival on Vimeo.

Sitting in Bishopsgate library I was asked to listen to the sounds about me, to those little noises which fill the quiet space but usually go unnoticed; the echo of footsteps, chairs scrapping across the floor, a throat clearing and the clatter of fingers on keyboards. A voice whispers in my ear, ‘for a place dedicated to silence there’s not much silence at all, after a while you think that it might be better considered as a place dedicated to the collection of sounds’.

This is The Quiet Volume, a self-generating, whispered, audio piece created by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells and taking place in libraries throughout London Word Festival. Experienced as a pair, you’re asked to slipping on a set of headphone, pop an ipod in your pocket, settle on a chair and relax as you’re taken on journey into the deepest depth of the printed word and the blinding whiteness between them. It’s a 50 minutes piece and yet this engrossing experience feels as if it might have been as long as a century or as quick as a flick of the page; just like being absorbed in a great book, time here ceases to exist.

During the piece you’re asked to read, leaf through the books piled before you, listen to the whispering in your ear and interact with your fellow reader. It’s a disorientating puzzle, a trip down the rabbit hole of words. At times it feels as though you’ve being transported into a Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, and at others you find yourself lost in a crumbling cityscape. If this all sounds confusing, it’s because it’s an experience which resists explanation but craves contemplation.
The Quiet Volume is an intimate and beguiling adventure. An experience which asks you to consider just what happens when you read those little symbols on the page. If we have heard the final death knell for libraries, this is the perfect, quiet eulogy.

The Quiet Volume is at Hackney library 18 – 21, 23rd April and at Senate House Library April 26-28th, 30th, May 3-4th. For more information and to book tickets visit London Word Festival

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