HEARING HEARING
BREAKING SILENCE
audiovisual installation by STEVE PICCOLO
I have always enjoyed listening to the music – tiny, compressed – that escapes from earbuds worn by people on public transport. Isolated from the life around them, they often hum or even sing along, seemingly oblivious to the fact that other passengers can (over)hear them. They unwittingly offer us a glimpse of their inner selves.
Now to hear hearing, the sound being heard by the subject overheard has to be stifled. We are not hearing what the subject is hearing, but we can hear that indeed he or she is hearing something. Stifled sound tends towards silence. And while silence in modernity often had a positive connotation, in this particular moment of the present it does not. Many voices and events urge us to no longer stay silent. Many actions on the part of threatening powers are intended to silence dialogue and dissent. Both listening and speaking out become subversive acts. The listener isolated from the world, inside his headphones, is exercising what he feels is his right to break the silence, but in an almost silent way. (Steve Piccolo)
Steve Piccolo began his career in the 1970s, playing bass in various jazz bands and performing in contemporary art spaces across New York City. In 1979 he formed The Lounge Lizards with the Lurie brothers. He has been active in the fields of music, theater, performance art, and audio installations since the 1970s. Co-founder and curator of the ERRATUM Listening Room in Milan.