April 2, 2023
White Silence is an ongoing experiment of mine in slow art, slow performance and improvisational music with a small group of willing artists and musicians in a space conducive to such experiments. The underlying driver here is my religious past and the claims of all kinds of spiritual and religious experiences – not only religious and certainly not only Christian. Consider the whirling dervishes of Islam. The euphoria and deep affects of a range of crowd events including rave parties – no doubt fuelled by speed and other drugs – indicate if nothing else a hunger for inner calm, escape and euphoric moments. I continue to explore this “hunger” and especially for me as somewhat of a sceptic and with a “non-pentecostal past” – but a strong pastoral and lay religious one – to see if silent collaboration with improvisational music performance and art making within such a social group construct produces something akin to a spiritual experience. Which is what? Our experience is, so far, over 11 years, that the descending of silence and stillness is profound and almost transformative while the finding of flow and rhythm within the group during the experiment is as it were a mountain stream finding its way through rocks and reeds.
White Silence at Queensland College of Art – 2015
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