As I sit on my chair, a red cushion separating, I have just got back from a short walk. It is a misty rain outside, I sat on the edge of a bench near a bridge, watching the near silent Swallows flying low over the river. I don't do this nearly enough, an imminent move to Oxford amplifying such. I have my window open, and I am listening to Morton Feldman's - for john cage. The words I am about to write up, I wrote just over a week ago in a cafe in Oxford in somewhat stream of consciousness, not stopping, not looking up, letting my tea go cold, rather stupidly. I was stretching myself over graphic scores, for various reasons. I may take this post down, I want to see how it alters my view, the knowledge that at least a few people will read it, formulating their own opinions, such an opening will always often close doors.
"The line one measures is immobile, time is mobility. The line is made, it is complete; time is what is happening, and more than that, it is what causes everything to happen. The measuring of time never deals with duration as duration; what is counted is only a certain number of extremities of intervals, or moments, in short, virtual halts in time." Henri Bergson
the potential, theory, of a unified listening. a listening where action and reaction cease. a removal of the self, a heightened self, in removal, the self is the environment, does not move, always is. inside and outside such potential listening, existing, changes, without moving. removal from the situation, incorporating others, listening points other than ones own, the introduction of unavoidable patterns. myriad choices presented. less familiarity. if performing unaccompanied one is accompanied. the development of text and sound, enfolding, filling the mind with the contents of the room, searching for solitude within the realisation. dialogues as presupposition, dialogues as present, dialogue therefore as movement. a listening of the past as influencing the performative present, a present of tangled past, quasi interaction simultaneous within oneself. the incorporation of perceived boundaries, insubstantial territories, a positive found doubled, concentration focussed on what is usually not. being, in such situation, as multiplicity. as anything but. a consilience of the preconceived and the unaware, unassuming, a coagulation of purposefully disparate ideologies. all listening, lack of hierarchy or importance, fleeting ideas to be held for as long as 'allowed'. an absence of counting, of attack, of texture, to exit as one assimilates, constantly start again, to accept failure, and ceases to exist in such terms. to forget everything, an undercurrent and overcurrent of allegory. to play at thought and experience, a lack of assumption, varying degrees of preparation, to hear one and many simultaneously. to forget the score, forget object, unification apart of intuition, unlearn at the instant of learning. to listen with ears shut. equal amounts of under and misunder standing. where does under standing cease and misunder standing begin.
we each of us share in what we hear, we all interpret what we hear, how we hear, when we hear, why we hear, differently. creating an infinite variety, a perpetual series of realisations existing in a steady state. there is no ultimate preference, there is no absolute interpretation, as soon as one explanation arises a counter is drawn in all directions. creating more dimensions, more explanations, more counters, always hearing. even in our sleep.
