So You Still Sort of Have the Same Number

In his short story The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges writes about a garden where an endlessly forking garden path symbolizes divisions in time. Our lives are made up of countless moments of decision, in which we take the left path or the right. Will you stay with your partner or leave him? Will you resign or stay in the job you have? The path we didn’t choose constantly recedes from us, disappearing gradually from view. Contact with your ex or your former colleagues becomes less frequent. The audio collective SCHIK has built this into an audio walk in which we look at strangers and familiar faces become strange to us. The walker’s ears become little satellite antennas picking up snippets of conversations. Memories of lost love, family members and friendships, as well as rediscovered strength and comfort all pass by as we wander the canals of Amsterdam. You split up and choose your own path – perhaps one day you’ll meet again, and perhaps you won’t. This is audio therapy for the melancholic soul.