Excerpt from the script of the mildly theatrical site-specific performance “I’m not speaking so you can listen more carefully” conceived to be performed at the Verket Paper Factory and its surrounding area.
SCENE 3.
Protagonist leads the audience through the deserted factory up to a small, sound-proof former control room. Narration and other sound effects are coming from a pair of portable speakers held by the Protagonist. Meanwhile, a dozen other hidden speakers are performing a slowly shifting soundscape ranging from the pseudo-mundane to the pseudo-sacred. After all of the audience members have entered the control room, the Protagonist leaves the room, although his speaker remains.
(From the speakers) It is nice and quiet here, isnt it? Let’s try to move as little as possible, so we can really listen to this quietness. We can just look out of this cloudy window and watch this romantically bleak monster of a room quietly breathing. In the meantime, I will quietly leave as I told you before, but you just stay put, until I leave the building.
(Long silence between sentences.)
Now that I have left, we can be a bit more relaxed.
Watching the space.
Trying to exist in total silence.
Trying not to move at all.
Breathing together in complete silence.
Staying with this awkwardness.
Not moving.
(Protagonist appears below the control room, slowly heading towards the exit.) Here I am. Slowly leaving.
I have noticed that the pigeons who live here, like to sit under the roof, relaxing, watching the space.
What are they looking at?
Maybe the incredible palette of shades, changing all day?
Yes, maybe they are watching the shades all day.
How strange it is that a speaker is hanging from the ceiling, isn’t it? (Protagonist pushes an unrelated speaker hanging as a pendulum)
(In the distance, Protagonist leaves the building through a small door) Now, as I have left the building, it is your turn to leave this small room and then the bigger room, following me. Take your time.
Listen.
Now.
Listen.
Bye.
Horizont
/Bike Tour/
The horizon is the dot-like blot that is always there at the end of the street.
The horizon is the glowing line, smelling faintly of urine, on which I am standing now.
The horizon is the sound that connects what I’m seeing and what I’m not.