Anders Ehlin

Fidelity || Freedom

Installation

In Fidelity || Freedom Ehlin combines his ongoing research on (mis-)communication and resonance, both in its physical and sociological sense. The title is a direct reference to the two highly debated cornerstones in translation theory, describing on the one hand the wish for translation to be as transparent and unnoticeable as possible, on the other for a translated piece to be acknowledged as a proper derivate and work in its own right, rather utilising reference points specific to itself and its cultural and societal heritage. Fidelity II Freedom consists of a kinetic metal plate fed with a manipulated electro-acoustic feedback, whose fundamental frequency changes in accordance to the plate’s bending shape. The plate responds to hand written input using Ehlin’s great grandfather’s short hand system Ehlin’s Internationella Stenografi, one of the early fully functional multilingual short hand systems, relying on spelling rather than phonemes. Feeding the plate with the signs of a deceased writing system Ehlin not only aims to explore the notion of a translational in-between, but also traces back his intimate history within a framework of communication and multimodality.