Seen/Unseen N°0

A long, narrow slit is all the eye is granted. Beneath it, black liquid trembles quietly with an extremely low sound; the message surfaces in the smallest form it can take, then sinks from view.

Two long, slender volumes of black woodwork, each open only along a thin slit in its top face, hold water within; fixed at the base of each is a low-frequency transducer (bass shaker), reading the seismic data of 3.11 at random and converting it into sound. The frequencies fall beneath the reach of human hearing, taking form only through the vibration of the liquid — an energy and a mass of data once immense, rendered by the most minimal of means as faint patterns rippling across the black water. And at these lowest frequencies, the two volumes resonate with one another, becoming a single immense sounding box that fills the space with a nearly inaudible hum. The reading is random — like aftershocks, the next wave cannot be foreseen.

The immense is translated into the minute; sound is pressed beneath the audible; seeing is narrowed to a single slit. The senses are forced back into a state of utmost concentration, reading, attentively, a message without sound — between the seen and the unseen, there and not there.

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

一道細長的縫隙，是觀看被允許的全部。縫隙之下，黑色的液體隨著極低頻的聲響靜靜震動，訊息以它所能採取的最小形式浮現，又隨即隱沒。

兩座細長的黑色木作量體，頂面僅留一道細縫，內部盛著水，底部各固定一具低頻振動喇叭（Bass Shaker），隨機讀取 311 地震的波形資料並轉換為聲音。頻率低於人耳可察覺的界限，唯有經由液體的振動顯形——原本巨大的能量與資料，以極低限的方式，化為黑色水面上細微的紋路；兩座量體更在極低頻中彼此共振，成為一具巨大的音箱，以幾不可聞的鳴響充滿空間。讀取是隨機的：一如餘震，下一次波動無從預期。

巨大被譯為微小，聲響被壓至可聞之下，觀看被縮減為一道縫。感官於是被迫回到極度專注的狀態，仔細閱讀這則無聲的訊息——在看見與看不見之間，若有似無。

本作品獲臺灣國家文化藝術基金會贊助。