Silence, noise, collapse

Participatory performance together with Barrie James Sutcliffe
Premiered December 6-7, 2014 at Skogen in Gothenburg

We live in a world of systems which we are meant to accept and trust. Debt and crisis are daily facts of life. Austerity and market growth threaten social stability and the environment. Repetition of these structures renders us speechless, strangling our dream for different futures.A trend in the west is to seek silence, like visiting mindfulness retreats or natural habitats. However, escaping to silence has a dark side. Silence is also associated with collapse and recession. The opposite of silence is noise. Noise can destroy and overwhelm. But it can also be a way to describe and experience our world, a constructive way of coping with chaos.

Silence, noise and collapse premiered December 6-7, 2014 as a two day participatory performance as part of Skogen’s block Three White Soldiers. During the first day, we experienced silence, hiking into the deep forest. The second day was spent in a studio engaging with noise, exploring unstable and chaotic systems through sonic waves. We ended with a performance for an audience where we summed up the two days.