The translation of silence
http://911digitalarchive.org/art/details/2376
"My daughter was exactly one week away from her 6th birthday on 9/11/01. We tried to explain the best we could, not sure if she understood the terrible events that had taken place just a few miles from where we live in New York City.The morning after the attacks, she quietly left this drawing on the kitchen table, and to this day refuses to talk about it. "
When a moving image has been recorded with sound but it is cut through editing or while broadcasting, would you consider it a silent image?
Are still images silent?
Are the experiences of trauma and horror speechless? (Remember Monica Turci’s and Hilde van Gelder’s courses.)
Well, here goes an enigmatic picture for all Litevans.
This is not Belgium. This is Rome and the photo has been taken by Adalberto Tiburzi. Below this image I would write "my eye and I", but you can suggest other captions.
http://www.pbase.com/image/25768153
Why are we left speechless if there is speech? Or shall we remain silent, for that is the only answer to the speechless?
Speech may be considered as a power strategy in the market of social interchange (Pierre Bourdieu), but wouldn’t silence be a stronger currency?
How do we deal with images? How do we make them speak?
Speaking may seem ridiculous when it is an act of expressing the obvious, and especially when you have a pseudo-speech (it is less performative than description itself) which simulates the expression of actual "feelings of emotions" (in the neurobiological sense given by António Damásio, The Feeling of What Happens). Here is an example of such placebo-discourse:
"This video was aparently shot by a local from the Maldives Islands. Although it is not very dramatic one can clearly see how the sea literaly sweeps through the whole island."
"This is a long video shot by locals and it shows the tsunami flood ariving and battering the city. There are amazing shots inside a building showing the water flood the first floor taking everything in it's path."
"Screams can be heard from the tourists in the background and he starts showing increasing concern repeating the phrase "what is that" untill he finally panics and tries to flee for his life."
These are video descriptions taken from the website http://www.asiantsunamivideos.com/. The webmaster also tries to justify his own practice.
"Why am I hosting these tsunami videos? Answer: Seeing how a lot of sites can't keep up with the bandwidth requirements of hosting them and recognising the importance of distributing them to educate the public about the enormity of this disaster and increase fundraising I decided to help distribute them." (my emphasis)
The images of the speechless (suffering, death, trauma), which are themselves a visual voice, are gathered as spectacle and speakable, i.e. objects to be seen, objects to talk about, but also objects to be forgotten, since memory works in a way more and more similar to a recycle bin: we can put many things there and then recover them, but at a certain point we no longer recognise what we want to recover. To use is exciting, but the used is not; the same goes for silence: to uncover it is to experience the new, but the things that we have already heard (or seen) remind us of the repetitive rhythm in our life (our identity as a narrative of iteration). The translation of silence takes ... well, I do not know so I stop writing.
posted by watchout at 3:31 PM
2 Comments:
translating silence, silence and trauma...
I am of the opinion that not using speech as a communication medium in traumatic occasions is not a purpusefull act, but more a negative act, a substitute instigated by a certain feeling of incompetence and powerlessness. I think in most human tragedies, not using speech is not a purposely imposed strategy but more an effect of not being able to use speech to communicate what you feel accurately.
This then ofcourse is because words in cases like this are insufficient. It is not enough to be able to describe what happened or to put into words what you feel; no, what one really craves is for others not just to imagine what it would be like, but to actually feel the same way they feel. A trauma is an exceptional feeling, something that one is not inclined to feel when it is described; it is a negative hypersentiment. There is, i think, no such thing as hyperlanguage (maybe in metaphors, or maybe even more in paradoxical figures)so (speaking, conversational) language, in cases like this is insufficient so one cannot do much but refrain from speaking, sometimes becoming catatonic or apathic, sometimes using other ways of expression to ease the pain/stress/trauma, like we see in the young girls picture of the twin towers attack.
What you write is very interesting. You stress the insufficience of words, not their inadequacy. (I don't mean words that are inadequate or unsuitable, I mean the inadequacy of speaking.)
What would be the specific feature or property of the visual speech that would make it more expressive or more convenient than verbal speech? I think this is also the kernel of the "gap" between literature and visual arts, if there is such a gap.
(I'm still not able to consider literature as a visual art, even after Daniel Bilous' explanation about the graphic nature of the schemes, which basic unity is the point or dash which is distinct from the blank page where it is drawn. Anyway, Dear Professor, this "forum" is open to everybody, so we'll always welcome you to join the discussion.)
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