A Thousand White Plastic Chairs, 2020

A Thousand White Plastic Chairs, 2020

In A Thousand White Plastic Chairs, the artist subjects his own voice to the mercy of these lights and the lights alone for there is no other light other than the illuminate interruptions that emblazon his face in red and yellow and command and direct the artist speech and speed of thought. Here, Abu Hamdan re-performs the asymmetry between the speed of the technology, which allowed words to travel through copper cables at 4600 m/s, and the speed of the human mind to process what it sees and stores of a given event. This works not only shares a common technology with the larger sound and light installation, it too serves as a proposition that the true capacity to bear witness is measured not through acts of coherent testimony and seamless speech but rather its very ineffability.