Refrakt

After a visit to the stairwell, I became fascinated by the shape of the staircase, rhythm of the stairs and long reverberation time. Although I was alone in the staircase, I became very conscious about the presence of a sound , but also of its absence. In the experience of the aftersound, I heard the response of the space. But what if is happening after the sound, when there is no auditory sensation. Silence. These observations coincide with and an essay written by Roy Sorensen, who pointed out that that ‘hearing silence is a successful perception of an absence of sound (…) Hearing silence does not depend on reflective awareness of the silence. Sometimes we become aware of a lengthy silence only after it has been broken.’ Silence, marked in time, can only exist because of its sonic surroundings, an environment filled with cars, machines and people talking. So in order to experience what is not is to experience what is. Silence doesn’t sound like anything and it has no loudness, timbre or pitch, but we do experience silence as happening in time. For ‘there is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.’ As an artist you often focus on what is (sound) and not so much what is not (silence). Not saying anything and remaining silent is considered in our Western society to be a negative experience. We prefer to avoid ‘awkward’ silences and keep filling these absences with small-talk or elevator music. The relationship between absence and a presence, became the ruling agent in this stairwell project.