Listen and Record
Wallpaper in Braille

Story by Juro Osawa | Design and concept by Ilias Fotopoulos

I record my own voice every day and listen to it exactly a year later. I’ve been doing this for eleven years.

I spent the first year only recording. Every day I bought a new cassette tape and spoke into it. Then I wrote the date on the tape’s label.

Since the beginning of the second year, I have been listening and recording. Every night before bed, I take out the tape for that day of the year. I first listen to its content, which was recorded a year ago on the same day. Then I record my current voice over it and put it back to the shelf. This allows me to live a life parallel to my life a year ago.

The only exception is February 29. I only listen to it every four years. I keep it separate from the other 365 tapes and the recording time is four times longer.

The contents of my recordings vary, just like what people write in journals vary. Some people are self conscious when they write their journals. I am self conscious when I record my voice. I try to speak in the best voice possible, as if I were to achieve posthumous fame and my tapes would be copied and distributed around the world.

When I finish listening to the previous year’s tape, I take a ten-minute break before recording the material I will listen to next year. During those ten minutes I am neither in the past nor in the future. I am stuck in a narrow gap, which some people call the present.

Back to the Braille project