Reflexive verbs, my black cat and the sound of silence.
Writing about absence...
The song in which Simon and Garfunkel speak to darkness comes to my mind...“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again...people writing songs, that voices never shared, no one dared... to break the sound of silence.” I can’t remember the lyrics very well...
Taking a break from typing, I look at my cat and speak to it. It’s black, it doesn’t answer (it tries though, it purrs) and I wonder what difference there would be between talking to the dark, talking to my cat and talking to myself... talking to someone who’s absent. Imagining a conversation with my sister, who lives far away. She’s absent, but present within me.
Talking to myself, looking into the mirror... or not. Talking to myself, to someone faceless, imaginary; or talking to a clearly identified person, not physically present however, but recalled.
Absence = virtual presence?
I think that what these situations have in common is that both the questions and the answers come from inside of me.
It’s like reflexive verbs, look at myself, listen to myself, talk to myself, ask myself, answer myself, lose myself, find myself, reflect myself. The point is: what are the ingredients to those verbs? Encounter, fantasy, delusion? Do I make them up alone, or are others present, in spite of their supposed absence? And when others are physically present, do I stop talking to myself, seeing myself, etc? Or is it like talking in front of a mirror, but with a temporary change of face? Does that face contribute with anything new, or will everything always be from within me, outwards, and inwards once more?
Perhaps the secret lies in that moment outside, whether what returns has been modified or not and whether I’m capable of distinguishing.
What is the cartography of communication?
18/11/98 ... the sound of silence...
(This text was presented during my official training as a Body Work Coordinator at the Instituto de la Máscara, B.A., Argentina.)
