Live Transmission from the court room of the War Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia in Den Haag to the Public Library in Osnabrück
Five professional interpreters sit on the reading tables of the Public Library in Osnabrück. They each wear ear phones. Transmitted via telefon, they hear live the ongoing court room proceedings of the War Criminal Tribunal in Den Haag. Simultaniously, all five interpreters translate what they hear into German. They hear the same text and they cannot hear each other. The five voices are mixed and transmitted to the market place, where they can be heard publically through loudspeakers over the whole place by passer-bys.
Each interpreter has a different speech rythm and chooses a different syntax and different words. At first, this multiple translation of the court proceedings may sound chaotic and the content unclear. At times, the audience can hear different interpretations of one sentence parallel; then again the five voices can suddenly sound like a chorus. Yet with careful focused listening the content and origin of the translated material becomes very clear to the audience.