The Earlier Known examines the architecture of memory and history through the forms of personal narrative, pseudo-scientific appraisal, objective narrations and text fragmentation.
The objects recorded on video occupy the space both physically (as images presented on monitors embedded in pedestals) and psychically (as the viewer recognizes and identifies the objects through video representations of real things). The transient videotaped images of objects, figures and text, with the passage of recorded voices and electronic music, thus occupy a space simultaneously in the physical present (the room in which the viewer stands, watches, and listens) and in memory (i.e., the images and sounds, which are the artists' electronically recorded memories, and which become the viewers' memories as they pass in time).
The monitor in the left pedestal displays images of various objects, precious and mundane. On the soundtrack of this tape, narrators read abstract stories in various languages (English, German, Spanish, and Chinese) which highlight the role objects play in defining self and personality. These narratives are read in a halting, hesitant manner, translated at sight as if from ancient inscriptions. These stories address the construction of memory, meaning and the configuration of personal identity based on associations with objects.
The monitor in the right pedestal displays more objects (some of which are the same objects as shown in the left pedestal). These images are shot with different backdrops, from different angles and points of view. On an English-only soundtrack, a narrator guides the viewer through a conceptual space, a fictive archaeological ruin, which eventually evolves into a description of the room the in which the viewer stands. This twelve-minute looped narration is very loosely based on descriptions of actual ruins that are located in the countries whose native languages are heard relating the personal narratives on the monitor in the left pedestal. These descriptions fluctuate almost imperceptibly between what seems to be the scientifically objective and the utterly fantastic.
The center monitor, facing the viewer directly, contains scrolling text of fragmented memories, all related in the present tense (e.g., "Remembering lying awake at night, watching the car lights through the Venetian blinds make traveling patterns across the walls and ceiling." "Remembering how small the room seemed after he returned many years later.") These written fragments deliberately obfuscate meaning by confusing the subject of the memories with the one who is remembering. Thus, the architectural framework encompassing memory disintegrates, coaxing the viewer into an imaginary space of infinite proportion, a psychic hall of mirrors with no certain subject present.
The projection on the far wall displays disjointed images of people, objects, and architectural details, each fading up from and fading out to black. Projected as a giant vignette with no discernable border, this element pulls the viewers through an endless corridor of evocative, associative imagery interrelating architecture, objects, and human gestures.
Throughout the piece, an electronic music track plays a continuous, brooding score, consisting of a low bass note overlaid with reverberating bells.