KERUI ZHANG

"war&wǒ"
Sound

In loop

2016

 

In this audio work, I pronounced the Chinese character "wǒ" (which means "I") and the word "war" several times. Then I played them at the same time. It is difficult to distinguish one word from another word. The boundary becomes blurred.

In Chinese the pronunciation of wǒ is similar to the word"war", however in a different tone(wǒ is the falling-rising tone/the third tone). According to the book"Origin of Chinese characters",wǒ is a pictographic character which is a symbol of a man with a dagger-axe.In the oracle bone script, "wǒ" is a collective noun.

These two words belong to two different language systems, the parallel sound may give us a chance to think about the relationship between human beings and war, and to take responsibility for the war in the existing condition. Without context, there is only an inane word, only put it into practice to become a real word.