PANEL
July 14, 2021, 6:30PM
https://wam.umn.edu/calendar/merblum_panelconversation/
https://umn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dWTToqO3RtC_QFsGrLVumg
PART ONE
Diving into Silence
It’s hardly quiet. It’s hardly still. Sounds are enrobed in fabric, in wood, in eyelashes. I see this truth as liberating. The freedom to hear a unique voice in all things is ours to cultivate and nurture. It’s not a binary experience - there is no right or wrong. There is only listening. And even that comes with layers. Layers of connection. From color to sound. From wind to sound. From vulnerability to sound.
And in our new reality, as many of us in the arts focus our time and energy toward family, home, nature and the internal experience, what is it that shapes this silence? What sounds are whispering and what sounds are shouting? What sounds are deep aubergine and what sounds are hot pink? And what do the tears of a child sound like within this new frame?
When sound takes center stage amongst the senses, we experience a living paradigm shift. It’s not in hindsight. It’s very much in the present. When we absorb sound, as we might soak up an image w our eyes, we have an endless sea of what might find animation in our ears.
And often this sea travels directly to our emotional center, giving voice to the feelings that words just can’t quite capture. It can wash over us or travel like a marble in a Rube Goldberg machine. It can walk through memories or launch us into the stars. And in that moment it makes the world so very small. So very interwoven.
We are now deeply confronted with the task of staying connected in the time of distance. Arms length has transcended concept and become a true measurement. Does this experience offer us new space in which to listen? Do we feel more connected to our families? More connected to our inner voices? Do we still need more distance from fear? Given that all of this perhaps lives in an amorphous sense in our bodies, sound may offer us the ultimate tool to connect and reflect. Even if it has a new taste. We must become chefs of sound.
Chefs create flavor profiles. They balance the ever so often discussed : salt, fat, and acid. Their art allows tastes to dance in our mouths. Our bodies are guided to connect to the source of our food. Truly from farm to table.
The hidden benefit of food is that we also eat with our eyes as they say. It creates the dynamic we are so familiar with in music - the soundtrack. We see the movie, feel the emotion or action and then interweave the sounds we hear connected to each. The two sides of the coin are seemingly joined through the eyes. Image, language, emotion (taste), then sound.
What I am exploring in my conversations at WAM is the reverse. Move language down the list. Take away an image. Lead with sound. A new take on dialogue that completely moves the ground to one of uncertainty. What do I play? What sounds are you talking about? How can we bridge our distance without endless verbal exchanges?
I’m going to suggest that living in sound shrinks this distance. It asks us to live in play. In dance. In narrative. In imagination. In color. It asks us to be our most open, childlike and vulnerable selves. It will be scary and exciting and playful.
I hope it opens ears and hearts. That it changes the questions we ask and the answers we seek. And leaves us knowing more about each other than any conversation we have had in the past. Sensory talking here we come.
PART TWO
Conversations Evolve
How do we find a shared language? I’m not sure this question was so present in my mind as I began this project. It was certainly on my mind, but I was mostly intrigued by the idea of music, and sound itself, shaping new levels of intimacy and conversation that would not be possible without it. That through sound, ideas and experiences would gain layers of richness. Dimension. Whether it be in colors, shapes, emotional landscape, you name it. That listening might guide an approach to understanding itself. That the ears would draw connections. That sound would be in dialogue in such a way that one’s perceptions would be dramatically shifted and reimagined. Rather than magical thinking, musical thinking, would invite deeper connections.
I still believe in all these things. And the conversations I had during the Weisman Residency gave me the gift of actually living in my belief system - with others.
But as time has passed and the project has evolved, the world around me continues to struggle, and I find myself revisiting this opening question.
How do two separate languages find their points of mutuality and grow into a third language. I should say that this is not an experience that lives only in one direction. Meaning, the two singularities are not only searching for points of meeting. But a kind of ebb and flow began to occur in each conversation that impacted my own language and the places that I would find and meet my collaborators.
So what’s the recipe? How is it that I now have deep connection and understanding of Rebecca, Lesley, and Amy? How is it that when I read an article now I have a sense that Amy might find it fascinating. How is it that as I look at a window I recall conversations that I’ve shared with Lesley about views around the world and the dances of light. How is it that when I see it a piece of art that Rebecca has created that I hear the timbre of her voice imbued in that work. That I see the colors she’s chosen are deeply connected to her voice.
Maybe it’s the dance between universalities : time and space. And the enigma of sound. Because the truth is, sound has let them know me. In ways than words are simply insufficient.
That by nurturing each relationship consistently, time has allowed the distance between us to close. And sound has allowed the points of intersection to travel further internally.
This concept of proximity encapsulates so much of what I wish I could be driving social justice and the arts in general. Reducing space between those creating and those experiencing said creation.
It’s all about the intention perhaps. Simply to be close. To understand. To connect. To absorb. Not to teach or to learn.
The conversations have led me to wonder what each project might become in the end- although I am blissfully happy not to know just yet. I make daily sketches for a collection of artists that share this way of being (something I’m calling Proximity Collective). This project has reaffirmed my sense that when we close the gaps, listening truly begins. That the arts (music in my case) can offer a lens into deeper perception by living off the stage and in life itself.