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The Sounds of Silence

How to Find Silence in a Noisy World | Op-Docs 360
Governed by the passionate belief that “silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything,” acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton has devoted his life to locating and conserving that gravely endangered species of sensorial experience and planetary poetics. Inspired by the writings of the visionary naturalist John Muir, who believed that when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” Hempton has spent thirty-five years picking out Earth’s rarest nature sounds, equipped with a 3-D microphone system that replicates human hearing.
Emanating from his collection of more than 100 recordings from silent places is the idea that “there is a fundamental frequency for each habitat” — a tonal quality that shapes the sense of place and the quality of presence. What emerges is the embodied awareness that silence, like the art of sculpture, is the removal of excess material so that the true form — of one’s consciousness, of the world, of life itself — can be revealed. 
Planted partway between conservation and celebration, Hempton’s lovely One Square Inch of Silence project offers a sanctuary of silence drawn from the Hoh rainforest of Olympic National Park in Washington — “very possibly the quietest place in the United States” and certainly one of the most ecologically diverse.”

HT: from www.brainpickings.org

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