There Must Be Silence is an experimental piece of sound narrative that explores the concept of tinnitus, a condition in which the mind listens to its own electrical activity. For those with tinnitus, silence can be a difficult environment and therefore unattainable paradise.
For those without tinnitus, it is an invisible disability, like hearing loss, which can be difficult to imagine and understand. Using a fusion of the spoken word and electroacoustic music, There Must Be Silence attempts to explain what some of the internal subjective noises of tinnitus sound like, and what happens when the synaesthetic brain constructs sound inspired landscapes. The piece explores the beautiful musicality of internal and external noises, and the abstract environments that the mind makes out of sonic experience.
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Text by Helen Newall
Photography by Patrick H Lauke