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The following
is from 312 No. 13, May 11 - June 30, 2006 [Download
Publication in .PDF format]:
SILENCE
PART ONE
(A SURFACE EXCAVATION)
Recently,
I watched a BBC presentation of John Cage’s 4’33”.
The conductor took his place, raised his baton and waited. The
musicians remained quiet while television cameras cut back and
forth—here a violinist staring ahead, there a timer counting
down the seconds. The composition was presented in three movements
to allow everyone to make noise. Despite this, a few errant coughs
broke through during the performance. Cage would have been pleased,
being the man who wrote, “Until I die there will be sounds.
And they will continue following my death.” (Silence,
Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. See: http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/Cage.html).
What, then, is silence when it is not the absence of sound? Alina
Kwiatkowska describes silence as a figure-ground relationship:
“A visual figure tends to be more complete and coherent,
better-defined than the ground against which it is seen, which
is perceived as less distinct, is less attended to and more easily
forgotten. … It stands out from its ground—which we
usually call silence” (“Silence across modalities,”
Silence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Adam
Jaworski. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer, 1997). I have found both Cage
and Kwiatkowska helpful in exploring silence in the videos presented
in this series.
In Carola
Cintrón-Moscoso’s Un minuto de Silencio (A Minute
of Silence), individuals of all ages are presented, each
holding a personal minute of silence for someone no longer living.
A minute of silence suggests reflection, but for the observer
it can only be inferred by the participant’s quiet restraint.
Life goes on unaware in Kwiatkowska’s ‘ground’
with cars passing, people walking and talking—but for the
internal world of the participant, there is silence. Some participants
appear lost in reflection—a middle-aged woman clasps her
hands firmly, appearing strong and resilient despite her quiet
tears; another woman holds her palms together in prayer beneath
her chin, gazing thoughtfully at the ground. Other participants
seem less reflective, smiling unsurely, as for an impromptu portrait,
or fidgeting about nervously. The silence in Un minuto de
Silencio (A Minute of Silence) is personal, consisting of
a decision to limit socializing noise. Some participants extend
this to include stillness of the body, kinetic silence, but for
most it is a respite from sound in recognition of someone no longer
speaking.
Alejandro
Quinteros’s My political opinion during the time of
American abundance focuses on a different silence—one
of complicity. In Quinteros’s video, the necks of young
people are shown close-up, two at a time. Each neck is onscreen
just long enough for the viewer to see the person swallow. By
lacking sound, the video makes me intensely aware of my own swallowing,
an internal crackling that usually snaps in my ears unnoticed
and unheard, a part of my mundane ‘ground.’ By focusing
on swallowing, Quinteros wants to highlight the unnerving and
tacit complicity of remaining silent when abundance could allow
change. Quinteros implies that the decision is to not break the
silence—the reluctance to act by ‘swallowing’
the tongue. He describes the video as a critique of the political
apathy of young Americans, of their silence during war in the
face of great material wealth. As in Cintrón-Moscoso’s
video, silence is linked to a decision.
312’s
two-part series on silence will continue August
1, 2006 with Alla Girik & Oksana Shatalova.
Mark
Prier.
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