I Dreamed About a Place Without a Noise

2015 - 2016 The silence of the photograph is one of its most precious qualities. As Baudrillard (2000) remarks: “unlike cinema and television, which always have to have silence imposed” (Baudrillard, 2000, 135). It is a unique and phenomenal event with meditative qualities and discipline of attention. Lyons (2006) in his essay “Meditation and the Inner Voice“ proposed ways to create new perceptions of the physical world through a reprogramming of the relationship between mind and body and engaged silence in what Stock described as “mental solitude and the exploration of subjective states of mind” (Lyons, 2006, 533). Absolute subjectivity is achieved only in a state, an effort, of silence when you shutting your eyes and make the image speak in silence: allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness (Barthes, 1981, 36). The body of work explores the representation of silence in various static compositions. It illustrates flow of time as being meditative, and adds indexical qualities of quietness. The work focuses from various perspectives of using the still and moving image and, at the same time, investigates relations between film, photography and sound. Throughout the process of photographic and cinematic practice, I discovered different approaches how to reinforce silence in individual photographs and raised questions of how to stage it into the moving image when it lacks these qualities. The project invites viewers to experience these values visually and also to escape into the dream of silence. It reminds us something important about existence, time and its flow awakens positive mood, dreaminess and awareness of surrounding elements in nature and also objects from our lives. It is a journey: conscious and fulfilled with a mental richness. According to Suzuki (1938), the knowledge of Zen highly evaluates these qualities and upholds direct experience of Reality and it aspires to drink from the fountain of life (Suzuki, 1938, 53). He confirms that the ultimate truth is Mind itself, which is free from all forms, inner and outer. Mind here does not refer to our ordinarily functioning mind – the mind that thinks according to the laws of logic and feels according to the psychology described by the professors, but the Mind that lies underneath all these thoughts and feelings (Suzuki, 1938, 53). In the moving image, I created visual and aural escape into the silence. In other words, the infinite line what lies underneath wavy and always changing noise. Whereas in the still image, it is created as a dream, place, home, our body as home or nature where we all, as human beings, coming from. Place, what belongs to ourselves, where we can release our thoughts and be aware of our reality and simple acceptance. As Adams (1996) invites: “silence is, after all, the context for the deepest appreciation of art: the only important evaluations are finally, personal, interior ones” (Adams, 1996, 56). To see the moving image visit: georgeavetisyan.com References: Weibel, Peter & Steinle, Christa (2000) Jean Baudrillard: Photographies. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Publishers Lyons, John D. (2006) Meditation and the Inner Voice. New Literary History. 37 (3): 525 – 538 Barthes, Roland (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. London: Vintage Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro (1938) Zen Buddhism. Monumenta Nipponica. 1 (1): 48 – 57. Adams, Robert (1996) Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values. New York: Aperture, Inc.