Mourning Diary
Galleri Fisk, Bergen, Norway 20183-hour recording of the breath in-between words, speaker elements, negative & positive cables
hand bound book, punctuation
I recorded myself reading Mourning Diary by Roland Barthes aloud, then removed all spoken words, leaving only the breath gasping in-between. What is heard is a continuous sequence of inhalations and exhalations, drawing attention to the function of the breath in speaking, at times sounding a gasp, at other times barely audible.
Alongside this, the text is rewritten without its words, the book is re-made, but only as punctuation, a structure of pauses, breaks and intervals, language is reduced to its skeletal form, a series of marks that make space for the breath are seen without their surrounding context. The work considers the body that breathes in the text and where grief may register not in what is said, but in what cannot be spoken.
