LIBRARY OF BABBLE

and inspired by the short story, “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges, this site-specific installation utilized visual and audio components to explore language and the library as a receptacle of knowledge. Paralleling Borge’s interpretation of the universe as an infinite library, the 20’ tall cylindrical silo space was filled with table lamps mounted on wooden shelves reminiscent of quiet spaces filled with books and literature. 40’ long printed scrolls, rendered illegible, using text appropriated from Japanese Children’s stories translated into English after WWII, (an effort to reconcile the two cultures) were threaded, draped, and wound through the lamp shade frames. After entering the space and putting on earphones, the viewer, alone in the installation, heard a low murmuring which sounded primal and rhythmic but uninterpretable. The composed audio piece by Anthony Brandt and Chapman Welch, utilizing a recording of the universal phonetic alphabet as source material, further exposed language as both “communication” and “babble.”

-Jo Ann Fleischhauer 2016