my inclement weather

I decided I wanted to be invisible. I stopped speaking for one week to see if this would happen.

As an exercise in endurance and the conecept of visibility, I undertook a performance project in which I spoke to no one at all, for any reason, for seven days. My idea was that by eliminating speech, I could reduce my physical presence to a point of such nonvisibility that I could move through life virtually undetected, invisible. However, undergoing such a task presented several difficulties which I took every preparation to anticipate.

I began by notifying my friends and family of the project. For my family, who lives several states away from me, I gave them a series of friends' phone numbers who could get in touch with me if there was an emergency (in addition to not speaking, I could also not answer the phone, check voice-mail messages, text, or send/receive emails.) Following that, I decided that no mattter how difficult, I had to continue with my life as usual. I had to go the grocery store, I had to attend classes, I had to drive in my car, I had to go to the laundromat, and I had to teach my class, all in silence. Whatever happened (or didn't happen), I couldn't just sit at home all day and watch movies. I had to keep going as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

I had a series of cards printed (see below) with the words, "I'm sorry, but I am unable to speak," to distribute to individuals I encountered who were unaware of the project. I drew up a contract outling all of the in and outs of the project, including the rules and demands I'd set for myself, and the (very small) instances in which I could deviate from the rules if it became necessary (re: threat of bodily harm or harm to others). Once this was completed, I signed it in the presence of a notary public. Then at noon on October 29th, 2008, I stopped speaking.

Almost immediately, this became incredibly difficult. Far from my original intentions, the reverse actually came true. Instead of becoming invisible, the extreme bumbling it took me to navigate daily life made me feel as if I was extremely visible, and the frustration I felt was maddening.

Naturally, I am a fairly garrulous person. The inability to interupt what I quickly realized was a more or less constant inner dialogue became so overwhelming that I had trouble concentrating on the simplest tasks. Reading words of a page took all of my effort, and I did not sleep soundly (if I slept at all) for the entirety of the piece. I became very, very depressed, and the rational knowldge that my situation was a)temporary and b)self-imposed did little to alleviate the frustration I felt. About 4 days in, I literally thought I would lose my mind,

I carried a small notebook with me everywhere I went, and when it became necessary to communicate with other people beyond simple hand motions, I had to write whatever I wanted to say. I didn't anticipate this at all, but by the end of the seven day period, I had a written record of everything I had "said" the entire week.

In order to somehow organize the chaos I was mentally and emotionally experiencing, I maintained a blog for 6 days of the project -- my original intention was to maintain a blog for the entire week, but once the piece was over, I was so thankful to "have my life back" that I couldn't even bring myself to reflect upon the last day, even for the short amount of time it would take to create a blog post about it. If you're interested, that blog can be found here.

Many friends, family members, and individuals I'm acquianted with via the internet followed the blog closely every day, and when I finally checked my email and voice messages after 7 days, I was astonished at the amount of feedback people had sent to me. There were testimonials on the project coming from artists across the Atlantic ocean, people I hadn't spoken with in years, and almost everyone I knew in Athens. Why this was so affecting, I haven't quite decided.