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In the absence of noise, nothing sounds: Blanchot and the performance of harsh noise wall

Hegarty, Paul

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Abstract

Blanchot took Mallarmé’s “Book” as the paradigm for an artwork that aspired to such excess it could not exist. And yet it partly did, in the form of the poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. For Blanchot, this ultimate literary work acted as a model for a relentless deconstructing not just of what existed but also of that which did not. His emptying theoretical perspective is ideally suited to analyse the phenomenon that is harsh noise wall music. This type of music aims to be both total and static, an extreme stilling of the music impulse, and even of noise itself. This stilling will of course fail, in the shape of recordings, concerts, recognizable “pieces,” but this failing puts it into the same realm as the Book, as glossed and mobilized by Blanchot, in that it exists but it should not. It cannot happen and yet it unfolds. Rather than failure, then, I argue that this type of noise music is one realization of Blanchot’s thinning, dissipating and disappearing of Mallarmé’s project. This (in)completion, present in these writers and in harsh noise wall, notably in the work of Romain Perrot (Vomir) is not just resemblance but is something that enables a reading, a return (in)completion of Blanchot. This article looks to stage this double reading, a reading that produces nothing. Actually, not even nothing.

Citation

Hegarty, P. (2018). In the absence of noise, nothing sounds: Blanchot and the performance of harsh noise wall. Angelaki, 23(3), 112-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1473933

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 24, 2017
Online Publication Date May 31, 2018
Publication Date 2018
Deposit Date Feb 9, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Angelaki
Print ISSN 0969-725X
Electronic ISSN 1469-2899
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 3
Pages 112-124
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1473933
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/935814
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1473933
Additional Information This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Angelaki on 31 May 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1473933

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