Tyler Grimes
Listening To Listening
multimedia installation, 2021
If we could hear listening,
what would it sound like?
This piece implies an audio source through the use of precariously placed (unplugged) microphones juxtaposed to a silent video of humans 'listening to listening'.
It is partially inspired by Luigi Russolo's The Art of Noise, in which he alludes to the lack of silence in our industrialized and modernized world. This work intends to showcase the essence of silence by presenting to the spectator their own sense of hearing.
Through the mic placement, the sounds of the setting in which the piece is installed become foregrounded. In this iteration of the installation, Baltimore reverberates.
How loud can silence be?; Does there have to be someone present to perceive silence?
The work is also partially inspired by philosopher Graham Harman's essay The Third Table – where he critiques both the scientific and everyday views of objects as reductionist, proposing a "third table" that exists as a withdrawn, autonomous, and non-relational real entity, independent of both human perception and its component parts. In this project, the 'third table' suggests the immateriality of sound.