We May Have To Choose

The simple format of Emma Hall’s show—621 declarations stated one after the other—belies the complexity of what it achieves. 

It starts with silence and a series of placards that tell us we are not to speak. Think Bob Dylan’s video for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Then Hall starts the list. On and on she goes, the declarations coming thick and fast, some related to the previous, some complete non-sequiturs, some funny, some serious. “You can never have too much signage at a music festival”, for example, or “knowledge is power”. It’s a mishmash of proverb, urban myth and advice. 

A couple of topics crop up more than once, maybe three times at the most: race seems to be important, so does homelessness, and diet and exercise. But three declarations out of 621 is 0.5 pre cent – hardly constitutes a theme, does it?

We’re in an era of infinite knowledge but little insight. Tidbits of fact are Googleable in an instant. We all think we’re Stephen Fry on QI. We all think we know better. But maybe we’re less prone to questioning when sweeping generalisations are being made: “most people can’t sing as well as they think they can” or “prison is a line between good and bad”. Wisdom, or bullshit?

It’s a lot of information to take in and the list becomes a blur at points, the only variety provided by occasional hand gestures and small surges of music. Apart from that, it’s just the small provocations that encourage us to choose: is there a difference between absolute fact, and simply what we believe to be true?