You Just Never Quite Know consists of a large pillar that was built in, and camouflaged as an existing part of the gallery space.

Embedded in the pillar is photosensors and speakers. People moving within proximity of the pillar would trigger the words (in no particular order) “You, Just, Never, Quite, Know” to be recited. The unnatural repetition of the artist’s voice enticed people to take a second look or to spend time exploring what was moments before an innocuous and unassuming object. Once again, elevating absurdity through the spoken language.

This work is a translation of Emmett Williams’ 1957 poem “A Four Directional Song of Doubt for Five Voices” guided by Hanna B. Higgin’s following description of the work:

There are five gridded cards, each representing one word of the statement “you just never quite know”. The cards are distributed to and read by five performers whose meter is regulated by dots placed within the gridded “score” and a metronome.  

It is theoretically possible that the gramarrical sequence  “you just never quite know” will assemble itself during the performance, but instead the words assemble themselves in a sequence of “you knows” “quite justs” and “never nevers” that demonstrate how indeed, we just never do quite know, do we?