The world, as we knew it, is on pause. As governments scramble to get ahead of the coronavirus pandemic and the privileged amongst us work from home, the situation for many artists is growing precarious – long awaited exhibitions are being cancelled or postponed indefinitely, part-time teaching jobs are on hold, residencies and fellowships are closing, and absolutely no one is buying art. Understandably.

It seems fitting to revisit Himali Singh Soin’s animation The Particle and the Wave right now. In this hypnotic and strangely beautiful animation, Singh Soin focuses on the almost universal symbol of a pronounced pause: the semicolon – specifically, Virginia Woolf’s use of the semicolon in her novel The Waves.

In a little under 13 minutes Singh Soin scrolls through Woolf’s entire novel. Her aesthetic is stripped down almost bare; each page of simple black text appears centered on the screen, the white of the “page” is identical to the white background but the text is not floating in space – a faint outline of the page grounds the words and telegraphs the text’s origins – a physical book. A small blinking yellow rectangle highlights each semicolon. The minimalist video is accompanied by an ethereal soundtrack: delicate chimes running the gamut from high pitched and light, to mellow and sonorous, and to deep basslike tones. This “music” is in fact an algorithmic measurement of the distance between the 1,265 semi-colons in The Waves imposed on a C Dorian scale.

Kajal sat down with Singh Soin for a discussion of the inspiration and making of this unique artwork. Click here to read the complete interview.