Like every upstanding liberal, I am thoroughly opposed to the shutting of London’s libraries. That said, upon arrival at the Bishopgate Institute it did occur to me that the last time I’d been to a public library was two years ago. To do some photocopying. But Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells’s ‘The Quiet Volume’, a 50-minute headphone piece for two running as part of the London Word festival, is an evocative reminder of the intoxicating otherness of these institutions.
The piece starts with a whispered voice asking us to consider not the silence of the library, but its sounds: coughs, rustling bags, the tapping of keyboards. The next instructions are in a notebook, eventually directing us to the pile of novels on a table. We bounce between headphones, notes and fiction, and though there’s undeniably a playful element, the piece is alive to the old, eerie power of libraries. The subject matter of the books is dark, and the piece attempts to direct our inner monologue into some very odd territory.
Ultimately there’s something problematic about a work that celebrates the wandering mind yet tries to steer and second guess our thoughts. But as simple tribute to how wonderfully strange the act of being in a library is, this works beautifully.