Freya Powell

Omniscience and Oblivion
2015
Single channel audio
48:22

listen to an excerpt on soundcloud

Combining my interest in language and the use of individual memories to speak to a collective experience, I created Omniscience and Oblivion. I invited participants to anonymously share, one memory they would like to keep forever and one to forever let go of.  I then recorded different individuals reading these memories. Each moment has been mediated: by the choice of words, the grammar and syntax, the reader, and the pared down presentation. From this process of distancing the listener is invited to navigate the speaking subject by listening to the language and the voice, the written versus the spoken word. Omniscience and Oblivion presents seemingly everyday memories that point to the potential existence of a collective memory.