thought on a potential silence

Yesterday I was joining the “ reading circle” initiated by Marko. We were 7 people in the conference room, sitting in a circle, listening to Marko’s reading of “on potentiality” by Giorgo Agamben.

For about 20 minutes, we were sitting almost motionless, to not miss any word of the lecture. Not only because its content was so interesting, but also because of the medium: the only way to get the information, was to surrender to the ongoing sound of the voice of the reader. I experienced the difference between “I read a text” and “I hear a text, being read”. The difference between “I absorb” and “I am being absorbed”. This is where the text gets another value , because it’s presented to me as a whole, as a stream, as a complex and round thing, rather than as a chopped-up body that I can analyze easily when I read it, not only analyze but also judge and even almost censor it by the means of my own thinking, my own pre-knowledge, my own emotions. There was no place to reflect during the reading, no place for (too) fast interpretations. The action of the one reading, postponed the reflection from the others till after the reading. In these 20 minutes, there was basically nothing else than the text itself.

This was not only audible, but visible as well, in the non-activeness of the eyes and the bodies. Funny detail for me was that Sakiko, who was sitting next to Marko, at one moment turned away from him, turned her face to the wall and her ear to him.

I was witnessing- and part of- a communal act, rather than having an individual experience.

Although my thoughts were sometimes flying away, the presence from the others and the text itself, always brought me back to the thoughts of another, the writer, so to a different structure of thoughts as well.

In the end, there was a general feeling of satisfaction. I had eaten the whole dinner and I had a general taste of it in my mouth. I still could remember the different courses and my ideas about them, but it was very clear that the text was constructed as a whole, and needed to be ‘eaten’ like that, within a certain time frame.

Rather than being a critical artist, I felt like a child listening to a fairy tale, only able to enter the (theoretical in this case) world presented to me by fully accepting it at first.

After the reading, first silence. Time to reflect. On potentiality. On language, on listening as well. I wonder: what is the potentiality of this lecture? And what is the potentiality of this silence now?

Thinking about Barthes, who refers to ‘silence’ and distinguishes two different kinds: sileo and taceo. In early Latin tacere stands for verbal silence, while silere stands for stillness, absence of movement and of noise.

I wonder what the quality of the silence is after this lecture. And I wonder if in the lecture itself , there is not an extreme big potentiality for the second type of silence.

If it’s not by filling the space with words, a potential sileo is created in the (communal) body of the listeners.

To be continued.

Sarah