STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.- From August 18 Index presents the Pythagorean Audio Guide, a sound work by Ritsuko Hidaka, artist resident in Kyoto. The audio guide is based on public situations, using various sites in Stockholm as a starting point. By using a metric system, the artist investigates how subjects of location and space are perceived by an observer, in an image and in reality. In order to present both the illusion and the reality, according to the artist, the act of measuring becomes the most appropriate method since it will not allow any subjective imagination to expand. By measuring the photographed objects illusion will be brought down to the level of reality.

Via three listening stations at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, each with a headphone fixed at the side of a photographed image – in fact a record-sleeve – Pythagorean Audio Guide provides visitors with narrated information on the objects depicted in the image. Using the mere glass panes of Kulturhuset’s panorama windows as transparent walls, images are juxtaposed with the view overlooking the city. A fourth station will direct the viewer’s attention to relationships happening in the urban architecture.

These sets of information are all results of the artist’s meticulous research at site previously this year. Index library with sound- and video in the exhibition space at Kungsbro strand 19 will also contain the following works by Ritsuko Hidaka:
Three Questions, video, 6 mins 2003; Ritsuko Hidaka Giving Directions to the British Museum, sound loop, 2002. Thanks to: Sofia Curman, narrator Pythagorean Audio Guide; Roger Josefsson and Ian Murray, technicians, Kulturhuset; Yvonne Mårtens, curator, Kulturhuset.