Modes of Silence

1. Nativity scene bought from the Christmas catalog, 1974. Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus—painted plastic figurines: deities from a catalog. Model number. Page number. Quantity: 1. Each sheet used as toilet paper at my grandparents’ outhouse. From desire to pure shit. I learned to desire from the underwear models—my early masturbatory mode. Desire is consumption. Desire consumed my life, mediated by a Sears & Roebuck catalog. The circuitry complete. I now return to the original site of all my childhood Christmases and birthdays. And pre-pubescent sexual fantasies.
2. Soundscape for the Agricultural Age
3. Speak. Say. Tell. Whisper. Talk. Converse. Chat. Discourse. Orate. Advocate. Verbalize. Articulate. Address. State. Utter. Declare. Pronounce. Shout. Reply. Exclaim. Cry. Answer. Voice. Express. Convey. Impart. Divulge. Disclose. Dialogue.
4. Soundscape for the Industrial Age
5. Within the dialogue, I recognize not only my subjectivity (as named subject) but also my objectivity (indirect object) as the one spoken to by the other as well as one who is spoken by the dialogue (direct object) itself. Within the dialogue, I recognize myself as Other. Within the dialogue, I find myself outside the exteriority of language. Within language, I find myself outside my own interior dialogue. Within the logo-centrism of Western language, I find that I myself do not exist, that dialogue is only possible with my erasure, that the presence of language fulfills my absence, that I exist only where language fails. [Based on various texts by Blanchot, Levinas, Gadamer, Derrida, Foucault, and Mallarmé.]
6. Soundscape for the Digital Age