matrix.24 N°1

An ear waiting for aftershocks hears nothing else. In the twenty-four hours after 3.11, the body's senses gave themselves over entirely to the premonition of the next tremor; surrounding sounds receded one by one, and the world narrowed to an act of passive, attentive reception — the only response a body could offer to seismic waves that could neither be seen nor foreseen.

Eighteen black iron plates, 80 × 80 × 4 centimeters each, hover 70 centimeters above the floor; fixed beneath each plate is a low-frequency transducer (bass shaker), playing the audio waveforms converted from all the seismic waveforms recorded within those twenty-four hours. The frequencies lie below the threshold of human hearing — the sound itself remains absent, and only the cold, hard metal betrays its presence, sounding a low drone under sustained vibration: twenty-four hours of seismic data, compressed and released into the air.

Invisible seismic waves are translated into inaudible sound waves; the medium speaks on their behalf. Standing among these suspended sheets of metal, the body returns to the only posture that was possible then: to receive, passively and attentively, every sound that vibrating matter produces.

With the support of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan.

等待餘震的耳朵，聽不見其他的聲音。311 之後的二十四小時，身體的感官全數讓位給下一次震動的預感；周圍的聲響逐一退去，世界縮減為一種被動而仔細的接收——對於看不見、也無從預期的地震波，這是身體唯一能做的回應。

十八片 80×80×4 公分的黑色鐵板懸浮於離地 70 公分處，每片下方固定一顆低頻振動器，播放由那二十四小時內所有地震波形轉換而成的聲音波形。頻率低於人耳可聞的界限，聲音本身始終缺席——唯有冰冷堅硬的金屬洩漏它的存在，在持續的振動中發出低鳴，將二十四小時的地震資料壓縮、釋放到空氣之中。

看不見的地震波，被轉譯為聽不見的聲波，再由介質代為說出。置身這片懸浮的金屬之間，身體重回當時唯一可能的姿勢：被動地、仔細地，接收一切介質振動所產生的聲響。

本作品獲臺灣國家文化藝術基金會贊助。