This issue of Metronome is the result of two situations reflected under the chapter headings Magnetic Speech and Le Bâtard, and preceded by introductory texts.

Magnetic Speech was an investigation into the verbal that was conducted during the last eighteen months. It began at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, yet the majority of the research and production was developed with the support of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish art academies.Le Bâtard began in July 2000 on the invitation of Samon Takahashi, who organised the Elastica residencies at the Château de Bionnay in France. Both situations suggest different formulations of The Bastard as a process of 'miscegenation', a controversial concept, that there is not reduced to the politics of race, but is resignified in terms of linguistic alloys (Magnetic Speech) and social encounters (Le Bâtard).

The languages in Metronome No. 7 include English, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Arabic and Wolof with a layout that moves from one language to the next without divisions. Here, translation becomes the predisposition to incorporate semantic constraints and to assert them through the act of non-comprehension, multiplying loss on the same page, rather than diminishing it through a dominant code, e.g. Clémentine Deliss


Language: English/French/Dutch/German/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish/Icelandic/Arabic/Wolof