The Sound(s) of Silence
Posthumous text by American sound art pioneer invites us to question perception
(Second and final repost, to get all content under one Substack - thank you for your patience!)
Ignota Press, 2022
£7.99
69 pages
Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) was an American composer and performer known for conceiving a “meditative, improvisatory approach to music” called ‘Deep Listening’. She was a prominent figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music, to file alongside radiophonic pioneer and creator Dr Who’s warbling theme, Delia Derbyshire. Sound art is arguably marginal in public ideas of modern art, yet well established - a gnarled bonsai tree, small but sturdy.
The work is arguably timely, with booming interest in psychedelics as well as dissolving rationality without drugs, and in quantum technologies such as quantum computing. Inded, the book’s chief conceit is its titular wordplay. Quantum has a kind of buzzword quality these days, much like “atomic” might have done in the mid 20th century: it’s the future, not everyone understands it, and that makes it cool.
A diminutive book of art theory that borrows a concept from physics, Oliveros invites us to move past mindful listening, past pausing and hearing birdsong, and past even our thinking selves. “Deep Listening takes us below the surface of our consciousness”. The reader is Alice, invited to take a sip from a curious, tiny bottle. Auditory ambulations and discombobulating dialogues aside, the most affective experiences can be arresting field recordings - of forests, the crunch and ticks of tundra.
The most directly definition that can be related to quantum science is “Quantum listening is listening to more than one reality simultaneously.” Yet Oliveros offers no single definition of the practice of “quantum listening” but many, that layer. As a work of philosophy it is more continental than analytic, swimming in repetitions and with autobiographical diversions.
As a work of philosophy it is more continental than analytic, swimming in repetitions and with autobiographical diversions.
Where the book really shines is as a sermon. Oliveros explores the spiritual dimension with sincerity and alacrity. Though the introduction states “quantum listening is not really a Buddhist exercise”, a secular mysticism permeates the text. Oliveros is our secular shamaness, and the reader is drawn into it.
There are flaws. Seekers of formal discipline will be disappointed. The kinds of questions Oliveros proffers could be criticised by the mean-spirited as hippy dippy naïveté: “Does sound have consciousness?” “What if you could hear the frequency of colours?”
And fans of straight spirituality may find the occasional physics (“The field of sound can be felt as a potential force”) offputting. She quotes books such as The Quantum Tai Chi. If you’re expecting hard science, the work may be shrugged off as easily homoeopathy or feng shui. And if you aren’t drawn to the science of sound, some lines can be glossed over. The reader may find her leaps from listening mindfully to poetic-physics to social utopianism jarring.
What Oliveros succeeds in - so rare in philosophy and art writing yet increasingly common in physics and astronomy writing - is inspiring awe and wonder. She asks, “Can you imagine listening beyond the edge of your own imagination?” And “Would you like to zoom into a waterfall to hear individual sounds of the falling drops? Would you like to hear the sound of a cell dividing in your own body?” Suddenly one feels sensorially deprived, and enlivened, at the same time, imagining oneself as a hummingbird at the edge of said waterfall. One book, also a video, that gave me the same feeling was the Eames’ brothers classic Powers of Ten (1977) where they zoom in from beyond the galaxy to a molecule in a sunbather’s hand.
Where the book really shines is as a sermon.
Quantum Listening is a worthy attempt at a sensorial primer, offering us a seashell to place over our ears. In a social-media-saturated world listening is a virtue worth promoting.
Part part biography of a pioneer, part manifesto and part sermon, Quantum Listening may or may not lead one to seek out more sound art. Nonetheless this work is a pocket-sized bath bombe for the imagination, a mystic primer. Oliveros, finding new harmonies between physics, poetry and art, leads you to question perception itself - which, if you are willing, will leave you tingling.
I saw an exhibition guided by her listening questions once, but had forgotten about it -- thank you for these reminders!