✧༺ Becoming Constellations ༻✧

250223 Berlin - Constellations of Silence

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Berlin - Constellations of Silence

“Method of this project: literary montage. I needn’t say anything. Merely show. I shall purloin no valuables, appropriate no ingenious formulations. But the rags, the refuse—these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them.” - Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project

Constellations of Listening

The Morgue (Silent Green)

  • Eye of the storm
  • Center of calm
  • Site of transformation
  • Place of rest that cannot rest

The Forest

  • Screams heard as silence
  • Conservation as erasure
  • The wind through remaining leaves
  • The chainsaw’s interruption

The City

Sólido como la Piedra
Que nos une
Día a día a día
Saldremos por la ciudad
  • Urban resistance
  • Daily solidarity
  • Collective movement
  • The city’s screams

Forms of Silence

Colonial Silence

  • Conservation as greenwashing
  • Displacement narratives
  • The silence of profit margins
  • Air-conditioned removals

Resistant Silence

  • Silence under torture (bravery)
  • Silence under injustice (cowardice)
  • The silence of grief
  • The double silence of unmarked tombs

Living Silence

  • Newborn’s tranquility
  • Lake’s stillness
  • Elder’s respect
  • Ritual’s devotion
  • Night sky’s incommensurability

The Politics of Listening

Equilibrium

  • The ear that cannot close
  • Listening as balance
  • Balance as survival
  • The inner ear of the world

Collective Breath

Este viento que respira, el respiro
De mi gente (de mi gente)
  • Wind as collective voice
  • Breathing as resistance
  • The rhythm of survival
  • Community as living entity

Historical Consciousness

  • The storm’s eye view
  • Pacific testimonies in European columbaria
  • The perforated flute’s silence
  • Memory as active listening

Methodological Notes

Literary Montage

  • Using the fragments
  • Allowing refuse to speak
  • Creating constellations
  • Finding meaning in juxtaposition

Zettelgartenwerk Approach

  • Notes as garden
  • Thoughts as cultivation
  • Projects as growth
  • Revolutionary potential in arrangement

Questions for Further Development

  1. Spatial Politics

    • How does silence manifest differently in various urban spaces?
    • What is the relationship between silence and displacement?
    • How do spaces of memory transform through time?

  2. Temporal Politics

    • How does historical silence relate to present resistance?
    • What is the rhythm of collective memory?
    • How does the storm’s temporality affect listening?

  3. Sonic Politics

    • What is the relationship between music and revolution?
    • How does collective breathing become political action?
    • What is the sound of solidarity?

Project Threads

  • Music as revolutionary medium
  • Silence as political practice
  • Urban space as constellation
  • Memory as active listening
  • Redemption through attention

“The ears do not close. Imagination does not sleep. A politics that stems from listening is a politics of imagination.”