Black Noise

In fields such as acoustic engineering, electronics and physics, the colour of noise refers to the energy spectrum that noise carries. White, pink or black noise have different characteristics. Black noise is a type of noise in which the dominant energy level is zero across all frequencies, containing occasional sudden increases; it is also defined as silence. Contrary to assumption, sound and silence are not opposites of each other, but rather one contains the other. Their complex coexistence becomes visible in this impossible set: sound is a subset of silence, and silence is a subset of sound; both contain what contains them. Silence has sound, and along with it, measurable, transformable power. The inverse of this proposition is also possible: when sound loses its content, context and meaning, it becomes noise, and noise can become silence. Silencing and being silenced do not indicate loss of power, nor does noise indicate existence or gain. In Turkish, silence created with the negation suffix is equivalent to the term "silence" in Western languages, which is also used as a verb meaning "to silence, to hush". Although silence is frequently used in terms that imply a tense passive waiting period before and/or after an action—such as the silence of death, the silence of lambs, the silence before rain—silence is laden with sound and action. On the other hand, although sound is the representative of expression, movement, shared life and nature, it is sometimes not more powerful than its absence—its non-existence. As a contemporary art project, Black Noise is concerned with the complex relationship between sound and silence; as an artistic medium of expression, it focuses on the transformation of sound across different channels, its function, its dysfunction, its poetry, sometimes its meaninglessness, sometimes its power. By activating the broad range of associations created by sound and silence, it invites these works with social references to communicate with each other and with the viewer.