Conceptualised by South Korean artist Jiyoung Wi, 4’44” comes as her first sound fiction project, presented as part book and part CD. During her Sonology course in The Hague, her recent work considers the relationship between writing and sound to divulge the narrative possibilities of non-image-based mediums.

4’44” is structured as a series of letters with each chapter opening with a one-sided transcript of a conversation. The accompanying audio tracks combine environmental sounds collected through field recording and a reading of the transcript by seven speakers. The reading is performed in the original language of the project, Korean, and six additional languages—Japanese, Chinese, Bengali, English, Lithuanian, and Turkish. The use of multiple languages disrupts a single, cohesive cultural or geographical context for the text, further obscuring the identities of those engaged in the conversation. Such translation of text to sound acts as a prelude, drawing the readers into the disjointed world of 4’44”.

Intimate and surreal, the story follows a first-person narrator who relies on her fractured psyche for survival, chronicling the various stages of her mysterious illness.
In a world where patriarchal authority is largely absent, the protagonist’s trauma, manifesting as a physical illness, becomes a symbiotic force that both consumes and guides her, leading her to reject a future of lobotomised existence. The story underscores how memory and identity are embodied, with death emerging as a radical form of resistance and existence.

The title reflects the layered conceptual and formal explorations of the work, appropriating John Cage’s 4'33”, lasting 273 seconds, often interpreted as referencing -273°C, or absolute zero, where all molecular motion stops. By adding 11 seconds, Wi creates an interval to reflect on “the other,” mirroring the act of letter-writing, which involves both a sender (self) and a recipient (other). The resulting manipulation of time also draws on cultural symbolism, as the number four is often associated with death in many Asian cultures. Combining the suspended ambience of 4 minutes and 33 seconds with a brief yet charged speculative moment, the letters of 4’44” invite meditation on what lies beyond the self, at the edge of death.