《MONTAGE I》 is an interactive installation that evokes an intense sense of dread through a synthesis of reconstructed narration based on messages left by serial killers, a range of sound effects and music, and still/moving images projected like searchlights.The eight voiceovers in the work are reassemblies of sentences left by American serial killers, while the eight sound effects are composed of imagined sounds derived from specific photographic images. At the center of the piece is a single black-and-white photograph: A Tree House in Valentine (2011) by Elisa Larvego, depicting a treehouse built above a remote desert house in the American Southwest.

This image conveys a dual emotional tone. It appears tranquil, even comforting, yet simultaneously evokes isolation and melancholy—a tension born from the collision between subjective memory and objective visual information. This affect can be interpreted through Roland Barthes’ concepts of studium and punctum from Camera Lucida. In this work, these ideas are transposed from visual to auditory domains, restructured as a multi-sensory encounter.

The sound elements—voiceovers and effects—do not follow a linear narrative or causal relationship. Instead, these heterogeneous fragments are activated by the position and movement of the viewer, generating a dynamic network of meaning akin to cinematic montage. In this schema, the visible visual information (images, sound effects, etc.) aligns with studium, while the reconfigured narrations—inaudible until triggered, yet experienced as internal monologue—serve as punctum.

The concept of off-screen, borrowed from film theory, also operates here as a visual device. Spotlights, echoing the movements of the viewer like a massive mirror, illuminate the still image and animate it, converting the photographic moment into a moving image. This visual mechanism, interwoven with sound, invites metaphorical reflection, forging new semiotic relations between image, sound, and viewer.

Despite the absence of a clear narrative continuity, the work’s configuration of disparate elements (images, sound, interactivity) generates the feeling of being immersed in a psychological thriller. The killers’ messages, which at first resemble the faded pages of a diary, ironically feel not so different from our own inner voices—at least before we recognize their origin. This overlap with the familiar interiority of human emotion evokes a subtle identification.

By positioning the viewer’s bodily movement as the very medium of narrative construction, the work escapes linear storytelling and instead reveals an emergent, non-linear structure shaped through the viewer’s experience. Rather than being dictated by the artist, meaning is assembled by the viewer’s own perceptions and interpretations. This dynamic resonates with Barthes’ notion of the death of the author and the subsequent re-signifying role of the reader—or, here, the viewer.

In the end, 《MONTAGE I》 is intentionally constructed to resist the convergence of fragmented audiovisual components into a singular narrative. Instead, the flow of meaning shifts ceaselessly with the viewer’s presence and engagement. The viewer is no longer a passive observer, but becomes an active agent, reconstructing meaning through their own sensory perception, memory, and imagination.What initially sounds like the private murmurs or monologues of serial killers begins to transcend their role as mere “Others.” These voices become a Lacanian mirror—reflecting the viewer’s own latent desires and anxieties. As the viewer projects onto these fragments, they inch closer to a self-reflective understanding of human existence.