SILENCE BOUNDNESS AND BEING

When I say silence, I don’t mean no sound – we have been told to believe that silence is real which in fact it is not. You can never escape sound in any way. No matter how still you are, or how remote your landscape, we can never experience silence. There are microscope sounds that cannot activate the human ear, there are sounds hidden behind the quietness of every interaction, you can also never escape the sounds of yourself. Silence is something that field recordist praise themselves for. An untouched uninterrupted recording is the strive within the environmental recordists’ field. This idea of exclusion is something that I want to make known should be changed. The ‘silence’ your praising from a recording is to lie to your audiences and your perception of space. When you edit a tummy rumble and hand movement or a cough you become untrue to that soundscape. We go back to this patriarchal mentality, dividing the more-than-human and human. Within this practice-based research I want to make known that I am not a silent being. The sound is constantly vibrating through my bones, I am also that landscape, I record in unison with that space in time, through this I am bound to that recording. My presence has been made known. When I record, I invite all sounds, by allowing myself to be heard, I collaborate together with that landscape, I bound myself to it soundscape and I bound myself to the perception of that soundscape through the act of recording.

 How might silence relate to this methodology? Think of silence as stillness. With stillness we invite being, and being is one of the most fundamental elements of this methodology. To-be feels like a more singular experience whereas to be-with, is to be in collaboration with the more-than-human. It is similar to Donna Haraway’s making-with. To make is something you do but to make-with is something that alludes to another participants involvement. As I keep exploring this methodology, I invite stillness, boundess and  being-with into a key element of exploration. When I say boundess, I’m trying to convey a sense of connection. In order to collaborate I believe that you need to connect. Its something that I have been thinking of more and more as I begin to write an entry of the methodology. What’s been coming to mind is the need of including an ‘opening ceremony’. Ceremony might not be the right word but for now I will use it. Within this ‘opening’ I have realised how important it is in order to collaborate to be able to be on a similar level of understanding. In order to do that I look to the trees as a way of being. I talk about rooting yourself in the space that you are and opening your whole body for listening, once this listening body is ready you have your connection through your roots, connecting you to the ground for listening, you have your ears around your body open for listening and you have your eyes looking for listening.

Here is a short extract draft of something I wrote the other day that alludes to this ‘opening ceremony’:

Find a tree near by 

Greet this tree

Try to identify which species this tree is from

Be still with this tree

Now take 5 steps away

Stand upright, strong and tall like this tree

I want you to root yourself like this tree

If it is warm, feel the heat from the sun beaming into the crown of your head, feel this light fill your mind and carry this feeling around your body Feel your knowledge, kindness, love and spirit grow roots from your brain, passing down the back of your throat, spreading downwards through your lungs filling your heart, through your stomach and into your legs. Imagine these roots joining with the earth making your strong embedded and tall, feel your love warmth and knowledge passing down this rooted system. Tell the land that you are thankful to be here greet all the beings, feel the presence of the sun and air, listening with every part of your body, ask the land if it would like to collaborate with you today, breathe deeply and listen to your connection, if you have any feeling whatsoever that you shouldn’t be in this space please now open your eyes and keep walking, if you feel as if you have come to an agreement with the land please keep your eyes closed. 

Stillness also allows for other beings to be heard. When I spoke about walking in my previous blog post, in an extract towards the top of the post I mentioned a blackbird and how I couldn’t decide if it was coming from my music or my surrounding space, I mentioned how I took my headphones out because I wanted to hear. An ideas that came to mind is the act of recording without headphones. What would it mean to not having to listen to your space through technology, an instead just listening-with it? What would it mean to press play and put the microphone down to rest – what would the intention then mean behind the recording. What if I accidently didn’t press play, in ways is my mind recording because my listening becomes heightened as I am aware of the microphone? 

Throughout this blog post I challenge myself to practice being-with. On my morning ‘think walk’ I propose fining a seat sitting down and being in stillness for 10 minutes. What thoughts am I thinking-with my surroundings. As I had mentioned before in my walking blog post – I believe that my thoughts are thought with the more-than-human. I will compile a small diary of thoughts that seem relevant down below.

Being-with thoughts:

For these being with thoughts I sat on the 3 different benches in Hilly Fields Park South London. I did the same exercise on each. I would close my eyes for 5 minuets focusing on slowing my breathing, then I would start to tune my listening, trying to listen to everything all around me at the same time, trying to understand the distance I was from these sounds still with my eyes closed. I would then open my eyes and keep sitting in silence and stillness for another 5 minuets.

I chose to do these exercises at Hilly Fields Park, as this is my local park which I visit frequently. I was intrigued as to what I hadn’t been listening to there, and interested at what thoughts I could think if I was in an exercise to do so.

Here is the breathing exercise I did before hand to regulate my nervous system for thinking

• Take 5 long deep breathes with your eyes closed. Slowly breathe in through your nose, imagine your lungs expanding and the air slowly sinking to the pit of your stomach. Gently push the air lower and lower. Do this for as long as feels comfortable, then exhale at a slow pace through your mouth imaging the air slowly releasing from the pit of your stomach, squeezing it out until feels comfortable. 

Here are 3 extracts from this think-with practice

I did all 3 trial in the space of 3 weeks – one each week in different areas of the park to see if I hear and think differently in these spaces.

I also took all of these recordings on my phone as there was no need to use any equipment, I also think it would have taken away from my experience knowing that there was thing big piece of equipment in my hand. Sometimes I find that its just not necessary, as I was only there to think and to listen – the only reason I recorded the process was to have evidence of experimenting.

Trial 1

The only editing I have done to this extract is a simple fade in and out.

Reflections : with my eyes closed I forgot what the scale of my surrounds are – the distance of these sounds didn’t describe the different landscape they were on, everything became so much more intense, with my eyes closed I was able to focus clearly on certain sounds such as the people talking whilst walking along the path above me. My sense felt heightened, such as the wind felt so much more noticeable, and the cold become even colder. Once I opened my eyes I was shocked at how vast my surroundings were. Putting an image to all of these sounds was so strange.

I was also surprised at the landscape around me even though I had walked to this bench – when I was listening it wasn’t the space I was imagining based off of what I heard. when I opened my eyes I was confused as to how I listened to it so differently. It was also hard to listen in deeply to the more than human as the man made sounds tended to over power them such as the planes. It was also hard to focus on thinking when you know there is a timer on your thoughts. Perhaps in my next experiment I won’t set a timer and just see what it’s like to be. This is something I will select and change in my methodology, as there are times where I set the listener certain times to do things in. Perhaps I suggest a time frame but encourage them to do that action for however long feels needed.

Trial 2

The only editing I have done to this extract is a simple fade in and out.

Reflections : I found it harder to listen with my eyes open this time, I found myself closing my eyes a lot in oder to tune into other sounds. I also found that my hearing become more precise as I started noticing thought my listening the more-than-human that I hadn’t before such as – when I walked to the bench the main things I hear were the birds people cars and planes but once I closed my eyes did my breath work and sat for a while I started hearing all of the leaves around me on the floor and in the trees. I found that the more noisy it was – such as when I plane went over head – I had to listen harder and more precise to the more than human.

Trial 3

The only editing I have done to this extract is a simple fade in and out.

Reflections : as you can hear in the audio is was an incredibly windy day. I found the wind to obstruct most of my listening so then I stoped trying to listen to the things and focused on the wind. After a while along with the cold the wind started to hurt my ears. As this park in on a very tall hill the wind was far more abrasive than is normally is. In review the wind was in a sense obstructing my thoughts and my listening. Although – as I was walking home from the park I started to notice so many more-the-human beings, mostly being the leaves of trees. It was almost like seeing them more personally as they were standing out so precise and clear.

Recently I had the privilege of going on a 4-day trek through the middle of the Sahara Desert with the Berber Nomads. This trip although postcard-like and visually breathtaking, was incredibly confronting. Our trip consisted of walking through oasis, rock and sand desert terrains for 6 or so hours a day. My initial response to the Desert itself was shock at the stillness and ‘silence’ of the scape. Me, only being used to the sounds of the English countryside or the hustle of big cities was mind blown at the gap of sound. When we would go to sleep at night outside of the tents under the stars, I would always be the last one up – wating for the rustle of the others to stop so I could listen to the quiet. The sounds seem to all be hiding themselves. The vastness of the desert and the lack of sound in my brain couldn’t make sense. This is really where I experienced being-with. The quiet at first was comforting and then became quite scary as sounds tell you so much about your imitate space. On our first night I spoke to on of the nomads Havid about this. His response was – to ruffly condense it – the silence of the Sahara makes me think more, he went on to say that the Sahara is for the soul, it nourishes the mind. I also asked him about walking. As the days went on the walks became tougher, but you would start to forget that you were in fact walking it became something instinctual. Most of the time when me and my group were walking, we wouldn’t talk, firstly because of the extreme heat and secondly because we just wanted to be. As the hours went on with the walking it became just you and your thoughts, the act of silence and walking then because quite confrontational, allowing yourself to reflect and think. When I asked Havid about walking he replied – walking is one of the biggest parts of my life, I walk to live. These nomads have no cars, no excess food, some no phones and no connection to the outside world for months or even ever. They walk to survive. 

I thought that I was important to include the mentioning of this trip within this blog post as it has hugely influenced me. Although the walking in practicing this methodology is far less intense and strenuous as the desert, I still think that the relevance of the quiet and walking will have a massive impact of the way that I write this methodology. Taking on what Havid said – the silence of the desert is for the soul to know and the walking is to find out- to relate this to the methodology is to understand that this exercise is for the soul, it’s for your soul to connect and be with others eg. more-than-human. And to be silent or quite is to allow room for collaboration.