MY TIME, YOUR TIME

Hajnal Nemeth, “My Time, Your Time”, 2020, interactive audio installation, two-sided karaoke stage, Galeri Ffrindiau, Budapest, 2020
Photo by Péter Janesch

Interactive audio installation, two-sided karaoke stage, Galeri Ffrindiau, Budapest, 2020.

Based on a minimal transcription of the lyrics „Time Has Come Today” (The Chambers Brothers, 1966).

Entering the setting of the audio installation “My Time, Your Time” anyone can perform the two minimally yet fundamentally different sets of lyrics prepared on either side of a double-sided karaoke stage. In a similar format and with similar words, both sets of lyrics recount details of becoming homeless, the only difference being that one set is in the first person, and the other is in the second person. 

Is there a difference between “I’ve become homeless” and “You’ve become homeless”? Is this difference, if exists, really as minimal as the difference between the two poems? From what perspective do we assess the gravity of the problem: from the perspective of the subject or the object of the tragedy, from the perspective of the individual or society? This work is clearly also about empathy, most of all emphasising its irrelevance if it only exists by itself without the ability to comprehend the tragedy and resolve the situation.

Hajnal Nemeth, “My Time, Your Time”, 2020, interactive audio installation, two-sided karaoke stage, Galeri Ffrindiau, Budapest, 2020
In the picture: Vilma Zólyom
Photo by Péter Janesch

Hajnal Nemeth, “My Time, Your Time”, 2020
Interactive audio installation, two-sided karaoke stage, Galeri Ffrindiau, Budapest, 2020
Translucent plexiglass wall, two lyrics on music stands, active speakers with two microphones, variable dimensions