It is not every day, much less every year, that you get the chance to dine in a public place where you cannot see the hand in front of you - literally. We had the pleasure and privilege of dining at the Unsicht-Bar here in Berlin, a "dark restaurant". Our servers were all blind, thus expertly equipped to add us through the experience of navigating the world of forks, glasses and conversation in total darkness (for 2+ hours).We chose this restaurant for our first night so that we could all experience together a few moments of non-ocularcentrism (that is, a de-privileging of the eyeballs as our dominant sense organ). As this class is focused in on the listening and hearing of music and sound, this proved to be an ideal environment for attuning to our surroundings and one another in ways we all agreed was fresh and excitingly "eye-opening" for our ears. What would it be like to hear an opera without seeing it, having to follow the performers with our ears across stage? How do we, as sight-dominated people, choose to orient towards the world, and in particular music and sound, through our ears?
I've wanted to go to a place like that. Very fitting for your class. I think sensory deprivation is interesting.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
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