Hanne Tyrmi
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The Accumulative Absence of Silence (2002)
In the absence of silence there is chaos. What the term means here is
not the apparent disorder of things that it usually conveys, but a numb
feeling of lost directions.
From every corner
come demands on time and attention, over-bidding each other with promises
of guidance and direction through the chaos they themselves create. The
absence of silence amplifies itself to a screaming wall that cancels out
the senses; colour cancels smell, sound cancels message, tradition cancels
progress and, with authority, the voices cancel the dialogue.
The overwhelming
absence of silence penetrates the subject, turning its individuality into
glass. Having rendered the subject transparent and fragile, the noise
threatens to distort and break it. The absence of silence creates an ephemeral
state where it seems impossible to separate a single voice from the totality
of noise.
Hanne Tyrmi experienced
the movement of New Delhi from the backseat of a motorised Rickshaw. The
colourfully decorated vehicle struggles through aggressively slow traffic.
It is always moving, but it is slow enough to let the people interfere
and take part. From the backseat, people and traffic are seen to merge,
but the pace of the Rickshaw teases you to stop it completely and investigate
what you cannot see while moving. Letting the traffic leave her behind,
Hanne Tyrmi found people and situations that had also stopped. In comparison
with the roaring traffic pushing in every direction, life on the sidewalk
is delicate. The absence of movement allows you to notice and single out
other stories and reflections. It breaks down the wall of noise and reveals
the presence of more subtle whispers.
Hanne Tyrmi experienced
a nomadic existence in New Dehli. She knew her stay was temporary, and
that at some point she would have to collect her impressions and take
them with her. Early on she saw how the single voice struggled in the
overwhelming absence of silence, and how this threatened to cancel and
break her own ability to experience things. This perception made her start
to pack and organise her luggage the same day she arrived, selecting whispers
from the noise, carefully placing them where they could not be distorted.
After just one minute of silence even the faintest whisper had found a voice of its own.
Bår Tyrmi 2002