Abstract:
Shuttling between the realms of sound and image in the manner that a DJ mixes between recordings serves as a precept for the arrangement of this essay. In this interweaving of forms in my writing and studio practice, sounds create images in the mind and images evoke the experience of hearing, while objects broadcast sound or hold the potential (or transmit the loss) of doing so. My work seeks to fuse
these worlds in an intimate dance. The ‘gift of sound and vision’, to quote David Bowie, reflects my primary sensory engagement with the world. In writing of muted forms of expression within sound and
image I have sought inspiration from collections by two canonical authors who themselves shuttled between philosophy and the visual arts: Susan Sontag’s essay ‘The Aesthetics of Silence’ from Styles of
Radical Will, 1966, and John Cage’s celebrated collection of writings gathered in Silence from 1961 are pivotal texts. Other contemporary writers have augmented my research – the work of Mark Fisher (1968-
2017) in particular for his melding of politics and philosophy in writing on contemporary sound and image culture.