Murmur

“The voice starts murmuring, but is empty of content; it is everywhere but nowhere, nobody can relate to it, but nobody can ignore it. It is a voice that haunts but cannot be talked about.” (Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature, 1955) 

What is the sound of silence if we assume that silence also speaks, that there remains a form of noise even after speech has abated? Is the sound of silence the sound of its infinite reflection in space? Or of the people, objects and stories that can be found in them?

Murmur centres on the moment that the artistic thought comes into existence and the artwork enters the space, to break the silence. How does the unspoken thought sound and at which point does it set itself in motion? When is a thought audible and what is the role of the visual and the spatial in what we capture?

A poetic navigation of artistic propositions allows a continuum to unfold that translates the audible into different contexts and forms. How do we read our culture in the auditive characteristics of our environment? How does sound contribute to the development of societal conventions and their analysis? The auditive is intangible but can be manifest through its metamorphoses into other media and materials.

The work of Tim Bruniges has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.