Peteskibreen's Blog

“In Pursuit of Silence”

Co-Producer/Director/Editor

Patrick Shen

Available on Blue Ray and Download

This marvellous film was screened for the second time* in 18 months in Brisbane  at “Third Quarter” [a new venture gallery in Brisbane run by Emily Devers] on March 7 to about 15 people. One viewer came all the way from the Sunshine Coast for the night. I have come to expect that this kind of event is not a big crowd puller – who even thinks about silence these days? – but this was a pretty good indicator of real interest.

Here is the edited text of my opening speech before the screening of the film:

Silence is the domain of the Australian bush, 3 am in the suburbs, of artists, poets, writers, composers, monks, refugees and those in solitary confinement. It is the domain of forests, caves and sleep, of anaesthetics and Zen Buddhist monks and of babies fast asleep. 

And it is the domain of silent smart phones. 

At this point I asked for everyone to turn off their phones place them in the brown paper  “Noise Bags”.

My story:

Why silence?

As with all of us, our trajectories  at  life’s tipping points are undergirded and influenced by countless ideas, people and events. These are some of them for me:

1. I am in the final trimester or, the second half of my life. At 68 I am intentional and focussed on reflecting on my life and the countless decisions that brought me to where I am today and, I have the time for it.
2. I live with 5 females, 4 of whom are extroverted thinkers: My wife, my daughter and two granddaughters. The only introvert in the mix is the cat and I am slowly developing a love hate-do-not-impede-my-progress kind of relationship with her. Silence, in this environment, is necessary for mental health!
3. My home studio is a quiet and still place where solitude and sometimes Bob Dylan, JS Bach, Arvo Part or Max Richter visit as marks are made. 
4. I believe, from my own experience and bona fide research that the pursuit of silence on a regular basis leads to improved mental, spiritual and emotional health. 
5. I am able, in these silent times of art making, sitting, walking, swimming and staring to focus on unpacking my constructed self and to question all the layers of noise, words,  texts, shoulds and oughts that are imbedded in my subconscious. 
6. I believe that silence, stillness, solitude and quietness while the domain of dreamers and mystics, are also the way to enlightened spiritual experiences, apprehension of the mystical ground of being and the gateway to a clearer compassionate activism against injustice.
7. I have now some more to add. This is 2024. Wars are raging as never in my memory and given that we have more information I can be forgiven. I am now 74 and there is more happening and less. There is now a female dog in the mix and, as I write, my eldest grandson as he pursues his carpentary apprenticeship. 
8. There are 10 grandchildren as well. 

Following a  “pursuit of silence” beyond words, text and noise means a kind of hermeneutic of life requiring a systematic intentional representation. What lies behind all the words, who said this is to be and why are my questions inappropriate? Opening doors and windows means silence and sidelining all the shoulds and oughts with an active whitewashed silencing. 

An evolving practice in 2018 was a small journal of blind contour rendering and graphite drawings of local plant life in Brisbane, Montrose, St Kilda Beach, and Dayeslford. At the end of each third page I wrote a short piece on silence, a kind of prose reflection as to how I was seeing the practice of silence, for me, in that moment and reflecting on those drawings, those plants. 

Out of those drawings, morphed a new series of drawings that in their mounted state on ageing encyclopaedia pages, were unstable and flimsy, a kind of descriptive metaphor of my pursuit of silence. 

During this film, “In Pursuit of Silence” controversial composer, John Cage is featured and references his revelation around silence and his very famous work, “4minutes 33 seconds”. At the close of this screening, after the credits, let us take 4’33” of silence to sit with the power of this film and find a key word or two that we sense is a first response to our own pursuit of silence. 

Peter Breen,  March 11, 2019.