Brian Massumi

Swimming, it was my favourite thing to do my whole life. Until the last couple of years where I have developed an odd aversion to it, though I still really enjoy being in the water. I would swim almost every day and, in the summer, I could not wait to find a pond, a river or an ocean to jump into. Really, it seems to be the quiet…

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A great awesome silence where you get to hear your body’s workings, oddly amplified by water vibration. A silence that has a beat and a rhythm that can be controlled with a bit of concentration. Sped up a beat or two per minute, then slowed down; the breath becoming a longer harmonic sequence. A rush of air through a pipe, a much longer loop. Then there are odd muffled sounds coming from “outside”. Quiet does not necessarily mean the absence of sound, it is more a question of the opportunity to hear those sounds that don’t cry for quite as much attention.

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Images of that quiet; images that make the sound of quiet.