Silence With the Consent of Sound

With:
Juliana Hodkinson (composer and musician)
Emma Howes (contemporary dancer)
Robert Lippok (composer/visual artist)
Ali M. Demirel (visual artist)
Peter Cusack (field recordist & sound artist),
Ji Woo & Sun Woo (Zen Masters),
Juhani Pallasmaa (architect)

* FIELD KITCHEN ACADEMY is an interdisciplinary educational residency program, that aims at transcending the existing borders between research and practice; beyond forms and formats with innovative experimental tools and experiences on holistic knowing and thinking.

16 participants are accepted through applications to work with interdisciplinary artists and experts. For the duration of the project we used the notion of silence in sound as a gateway to opening various sensory experiences. Silence is used as a “sound” component in sound art and music, which creates an aspect of empowering the work itself by making it stronger. Use of silence can accentuate the other frequencies, and at the same time sound might accentuate the silence further. Yet, silence in sound also creates a passage to other senses of the body. With silence, the journey with the sound enables quick shifts and glitches from auditory senses to the enhanced senses of sight, touch, smell and taste. The notion of silence withholds many charged discussions both from the performer’s and the listener’s perspective.

During 4 weeks, we tackled the topic of silence from both these perspectives along with sound artists, musicians, a dancer, an architect and Zen masters via performances, concerts and presentations. We will follow two trajectories:

1. As a listener, once the moment of silence is reached, a glitch occurs and the act of listening switches to the act of another sense. This ‘gap’ of ‘non’-sound is filled in with other input from the environment that is perceived through seeing, tasting, smelling, feeling. Yet the activation of other senses is triggered, accompanied, guided and guarded by the sound. What would be the results of this act when it is done intentionally by the sound artist, composer or musician?

2. As a performer, how does sound reflect in silence and how does silence reflect in sound and sound pieces? What possibilities does this playful interaction between the sound and the silence hold? How does the absence and presence of both reflect on each other? And does this interaction alter anything within its close and far environment? How does one react to the higher and lower frequencies? What could be the sounds of silence?

Using these questions as the initial source to shine on our path, in two modules, with experimentation, trial and fail, de-composition and re-composition, we enhanced our sensory abilities within the aim transgressing each sensory organ’s threshold.
www.fieldkitchen-academy.org/silence-with-the-consent-of-sound