Soundscape

La campana del silenzio

2000

© Eric Andersen  

"I will ring this bell when I want silence/ When this bell is silent, you can be loud": these phrases are engraved on the front and back of The Bell of Silence, a bronze and wood artwork crafted by Eric Andersen in 2000. The concept of a bell that can be rung by anyone, intimately connected to the moods of those who use it, is not novel in Andersen's artistic repertoire. An exemplary precedent is The Bell of Moods, where each of its nine color sections corresponded to a distinct emotion.
This piece encapsulates the desire, emblematic of the Fluxus group (of which Andersen is a prominent figure), to democratize the art object through performative experiences accessible to the community. The ringing of the bell has always represented communal feeling, taking on a value both pragmatic, in its constituting a clear scan of the rhythm of daily commitments, and apotropaic in warding off negativity. By providing the opportunity to engage with an instrument symbolically recognized yet distant from everyday practice, Andersen restores the redemptive power of music to a spiritual dimension that becomes individual, intimate, and liberated in its performance.

Courtesy: Tiberio Cattelani

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