Silence holds diverse meanings: it can be a mode of social exploration, a form of protest, or a path to heightened awareness. It might convey submission, or conversely, symbolize economic power and control. Amidst pervasive inequalities, instability, technological advancements, and constant online communication, silence, as Patryk Lichota observes in Czas Kultury, becomes a “container awaiting meaning,” offering profound socio-political insights.
In contemporary society, tranquility is increasingly sought not through community-focused cultural or spiritual traditions, but through the mechanisms of free-market capitalism. Serenity has become a marketable product, digitally disseminated, algorithmically managed, and promoted by the wellness sector. Lichota posits that “quiet is not a counterpoint to systemic noise, but rather its refined extension.” He argues that “silence has forfeited its societal and symbolic power, now serving as a commodity in the attention economy… Consumers invest in brief ‘resets.’ This stillness—historically associated with contemplation or defiance—has been assimilated into the demands of productivity.”
Late-stage capitalism is driven by an internal push for personal betterment, geared towards effective integration within established systems. Tools like mobile applications, active noise-cancelling headphones, wellness retreats, and therapeutic services, which promise solace and rejuvenation, are not cures but rather manifestations of underlying issues. Far from challenging capitalist principles, they re-integrate them into a framework designed to foster conformity and mitigate stress’s impact on output. Commercially packaged forms of silence foster isolation, exclusion, and social stratification, intensifying the divide between societal norms and our sonic surroundings. Exhausted individuals acquire these “silence techniques” to self-segregate and protect themselves from an overwhelming influx of stimuli generated by an unquestioned system.
Sensory Deprivation: A Dual-Edged Sword
During the 1950s and 60s, CIA-funded mind control research explored sensory deprivation, hypnosis, and hallucinogens. Concurrently, the Canadian Defence Research Board pursued similar studies on auditory and visual deprivation for military and intelligence applications, including interrogation. Katarzyna Szafranowska recounts the initial investigations into isolation tanks and the profound shifts in human perception resulting from sensory deprivation. Key observed effects encompassed a diminished sense of time, feelings of tranquility, and access to novel experiential realms.
By the 1980s, flotation tanks had entered the commercial market as a treatment for stress and exhaustion, despite accusations likening their use to solitary confinement or torture. Szafranowska observes that “deprivation blended relaxation with cruelty, freedom with coercion, autonomy with subordination.” Nonetheless, flotation therapy’s promise of escape endures as a popular spa offering today. However, the contemporary emphasis on “resting efficiently and swiftly” effectively transforms it into an “active pursuit” that reinforces the neoliberal ideal of productive, diligent, and entirely self-reliant individuals.
While deprivation chambers propose relaxation and command over sound, Szafranowska asserts that “this control is deceptive, much like silence itself is an illusion shattered by intrinsic bodily sounds.” Stillness can amplify sensations of breathing, digestion, heartbeat, or even tinnitus. “Flotation presents an unreachable ideal—a dream of joy, tranquility, and equilibrium—when in reality, it serves as a survival tactic… a manifestation of society’s failure to adequately address its problems, further burdening the intricate connection between the human body and its sonic environment.”
Emancipatory Muteness in Feminist Fiction
Magdalena Dziurzyńska explores how speculative feminist fiction from the 1960s to the 1980s can function as a contemporary “laboratory for political imagination.” This era of writing provided an experimental ground for fundamentally rethinking concepts of power, language, and communication. Dziurzyńska highlights two utopian novels where women establish communities independent of patriarchal structures, employing silence to forge alternative communication methods that prioritize consciousness, intuition, communal bonds, and non-authoritarian expression.
Sally Miller Gearhart’s The Wanderground (1979) and Diana Rivers’ Journey to Zelindar (1987) portray female communities that transcend linguistic confines, creating egalitarian and harmonious groups living in sync with nature. Their chosen muteness symbolizes a rejection of conventional language barriers, instead embracing genuine and inclusive modes of expression that champion novel forms of self-affirmation.
Dziurzyńska recognizes that the idealized model of “authentic” and harmonious womanhood presented in these novels has, at times, been misused to suppress women’s political empowerment and diversity. However, she contends that these texts still offer unexplored avenues for examining feminine independence, collective identity, and environmental equilibrium. Feminist literature of the late twentieth century thus provides a framework for developing strategies to counter resurgent patriarchal narratives and to establish new forms of connection and communication amidst climate change, identity-based marginalization, and increasing societal harshness.
Performative Silence: Engaging with Reality
Monika Bakke proposes that silence is achieved not by retreating from the outer world but by actively engaging with its inherent presence. Sustaining stillness can disrupt habitual thought processes, facilitate a re-evaluation of values, and provide a secular interpretation of age-old spiritual traditions from both East and West. When incorporated into performance art with an engaged audience, silence can challenge our inclination to grant language excessive authority in defining reality or desirability. Bakke examines two performance artists, Marina Abramović and Amrit Karki, who incorporate traditional contemplative and meditative methods into their work.
Abramović underscores the necessity for artists to “cultivate an environment where silence can permeate their creations.” Her use of silence acts as a conduit between physical existence and her artistic explorations, focusing on the energetic interplay between living beings and inanimate substances. Through her “Transitory Objects” series, audiences are invited to engage directly with sculptures crafted from mineral blocks such as amethyst, quartz, or copper, fostering a connection with the non-living realm. Transcending the limits of thought and language, she suggests, can transform human psychological states, emotional responses, and physical energy, thereby “dissolving the dualistic separation between subject and object, matter and consciousness, the living and the non-living.”
Amrit Karki’s piece, “What You Have Given Me, I Set Free Forever,” draws inspiration from Abramović’s Method for achieving elevated states of consciousness, while also incorporating cleansing rituals found in Nepalese Hindu worship traditions, often performed on objects like the Chaturmukha Linga. Karki’s filmed performance, showcased at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York (2024), invites viewers to pour water over his head and body, representing a purification and surrender to the divine—a practice integral to daily religious life in Nepal. Despite its profound sacred symbolism, Karki’s work extends beyond conventional religious frameworks, aiming to “remain within a silent, open, and inclusive spiritual realm, embracing a common, universal yearning for revitalization… a fresh start in the spheres of perception and culture.”
