The River Knows Better (Ophelia Lives) poem meditation, 2019
John Cage intended to experience absolute silence in the anechoic chamber of Harvard University, but even there he heard two sounds, a low one and a high one. The engineer explained to him that these were the sounds of his nervous system and blood circulation. What would have happened, if in the aftermath of this experience his interest had not turned towards external sounds, but inner ones? In Anna Zilahi’s poem meditation titled The River Knows Better (Ophelia Lives), the human body turns into a sound source, the individually experienced inner sounds become constituents of the recited poem. The kind of presence necessary for the reception of ephemer media is not only activated by listening – meditation as a medium affects all our senses. This is how our bodily experiences become part of the sound poem, thus of the exhibited work.
Anna Zilahi