Words, sounds, silence
“You need to talk more” Checkout supervisor to me, as new employee at William Low supermarket, Perth, 1987
“We passed chats and conversations – duologues, dialogues, half a phone call, an argument, an impassioned plea, a fervent recount – and they ran in and out of each other, becoming concrete as we neared, heating up as we passed, then thawing and melting away to be replaced by the more immediate. Most words, though, were indiscernible, though, and simply existed, to me, as a hum, only differentiated by their timbre. When I could distinguish the words, there was a myriad, a colourful palette, on show – English mixed with Asian mixed with Eastern European, with Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire stitching the whole show together, remaining on top but not aloof, its guttural stops and flat vowels shimmering in the air”
from blogpsot “Listening to The City: A Silent Soundwalk” by John Atkinson on his blog ” ‘Am I Kulchad Yet’
http://kulchadyet.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/listeni…
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Contradictions and inconsistencies:
1. A longing for silence. I read sara Maitland’s ‘A Book of Silence’ recently – and her account of her experience of silence in her life as dynamic, ambivalent, rich and layered resonated with me and made me curious. I have started playing the piano again in the last few days after nearly a year away from it.
I read the above account of a sound walk led by my friend, sound artist Phill Harding in Bradford recently and the passage about voices really moved me and made me want to go out and experience the city in this way.
2. I don’t want to speak. I’m avoiding social situations and I can feel my resistance to talking becoming more stubborn and solid. My head is full of ceaseless chatter – words and phrases are barking themselves out to me demanding attention:
I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY
PLEASE, DON’T ASK ANYTHING OF ME
Are they mantras? I feel like I’ve got to do something with them. They wont go away. I keep writing them down, over and over. Is this a new piece of work?
Last week I bought ‘Art, word and image: 2,000 Years of Visual/textual interaction’. I want to look at art and words. Maybe I want to make it too.
There is a push pull of disconnection/connection, retreat/reaching out, leave me alone/listen to me.
I don’t want to engage in conversation but I’m trying to articulate and express myself here, on this blog. I want it to be quiet but I’ve started practising my piano scales everyday. I don’t want to hear voices but it gives me pleasure to read about them.
What so these contradictions and this contrariness mean? Is this a weird temporary grief thing? Or is it where I am going with my life, my practice?
Is writing about this stuff, instead of trying to write about my collaborations with Maria (something I have promised myself I would do) some form of denial or evasion of grief?
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Follow sound artist Phill Harding on twitter. He is really interesting. https://twitter.com/phillharding
