2025.07.25 Drift Mode : Of the Sublime

 

2025.07.25 FRI 20:00 (금요일 저녁 8시)

 

Drift Mode :

Of the Sublime
— 감각 너머의 청취

‘에드먼드 버크의 숭고,
티모시 모튼의 하이퍼오브젝트,
그리고 청취의 자리’

대부분의 전시와 큐레이션은 시각을 중심으로 감각을 구성해왔습니다. Tilt는 이 익숙한 틀을 벗어나, 청각을 통해 감각의 경계에 접근하고자 합니다.

청각은 시각보다 더 수동적이며, 내밀하고, 침투적인 감각입니다. 우리는 청취를 통해 해석 이전의 감응을 경험하고, 그 안에 잠시 머무르게 됩니다.

이 기획은 수용의 차원을 넘어, 신체적 체험과 개념적 사유가 만나는 지점에 ‘청취’라는 행위를 놓습니다.

18세기, 에드먼드 버크 (Edmund Burke)는 ‘숭고(the sublime)’를 감각이 감당할 수 없는 크기 앞에서 발생하는 경외로 설명했습니다.  그것은 조화로운 아름다움과는 다른 차원 무질서, 침묵, 압도 속에서 도래하는 감각의 붕괴이자 존재의 수축이었습니다. 

폭풍우 속의 바다, 절벽 끝, 신의 목소리. 버크가 상정한 숭고는 언제나 인간을 작게 만드는 순간과 함께합니다. 

그리고 오늘날, 우리는 그 감각을 보이지 않는 진동, 지각 너머의 구조, 혹은 들을 수 없는 소리 속에서 다시 마주합니다.

21세기의 철학자 티모시 모튼 (Timothy Morton)은 이러한 감각을 생태적 사유의 지형으로 이끕니다. 그가 말한 ‘하이퍼오브젝트(hyperobject)’란 기후변화나 방사능, 목성처럼 전체를 파악할 수 없고 시간과 공간의 범위를 초과하는 비가시적 존재입니다.

그것은 우리 밖에 있으면서도 동시에 우리 안에 머무르며, 인식 이전의 층위에서 감각을 교란하는 구조입니다.

모튼은 숭고를 존재의 탈중심성과 무력감이 교차하는 생태적 감응으로 다시 정의합니다.

그렇다면, 그 감각은 ‘들을 수’ 있을까요?

우리는 소리를 대개 정보나 감정의 매개로 인식합니다. 그러나 TILT에서의 청취는, 소리를 존재의 결을 드러내는 계기로 마주합니다.

저역이 몸을 진동시키고, 소리의 경계가 해체될 때,
몸은 더 이상 듣는 주체가 아니라 그 안에 놓인 감각적 존재로 이행하게 됩니다.

그 소리는 전체를 보여주지 않고, 침묵과 반복 사이를 부유하며, 해석 이전의 감응으로 도달합니다.

청취는 숭고에 닿을 수 있습니다. 소리는 의미보다 먼저 다가와, 감각의 층위를 천천히 통과합니다. 

의식은 그 뒤를 따르고, 설명은 조용히 멈춥니다. 그리고 몸은, 그 자리에 머뭅니다.

이번 큐레이션은 감각의 한계에서 출발한 철학이, 청취를 통해 어떻게 존재의 체험으로 전환될 수 있는가에 대한 질문입니다.

버크와 모튼은 서로 다른 시대의 언어로 감각 너머에서 도래하는 존재의 크기를 이야기했습니다.

그리고 지금, 그들의 사유는 소리라는 가장 미세하고 강력한 진동을 통해 우리 곁에 도달합니다.

이번 큐레이션은 청각적 감상의 차원을 넘어, 존재와 감각을 다시 묻는 하나의 사유적 행위로 제안됩니다.

청취는 감각의 경계에 잠시 머무름으로써, 존재를 다시 바라보게 합니다.

1. emptyset - Collapse [2012]
2. Eric Holm - Stave [2014]
3. Gagarin Kombinaatti - Massa [2016]
4. FIS - Steeper [2012]
5. Kerridge - FLA 5 [2016]
6. KIM ILDU / ENGELR HASHIM / KIM, CHANGHEE - KDJ [2021]
7. Mika Vainio - Teutons [2009]
8. Franck Vigroux - Centaure [2014]
9. damirat - Es rotis [2019]
10. Killawatt - Excessive Hyperbole (Monic Version) [2015]
11. KETEV - Women / Animal Skull [2016]
12. Kosei Fukuda - Deviation (Light Within a Silent Path) [2020]
13. emptyset - Function: Vulgar Display of Power (Roly Porter Variation) [2012]

 

Edmund Burke's Sublime,

Timothy Morton's Hyperobjects,

and the Position of Listening

 

Most exhibitions and curatorial practices have traditionally centered on the visual. Tilt deviates from this familiar framework, seeking to approach the boundaries of sensation through the auditory.

 

Hearing is a more passive, intimate, and invasive sense than sight. Through the act of listening, we experience a resonance that precedes interpretation, a state in which we can momentarily dwell.

 

This project situates the act of "listening" at the intersection of physical experience and conceptual thought, moving beyond mere reception.

 

In the 18th century, Edmund Burke described "the sublime" as an awe that arises when faced with a magnitude that overwhelms the senses. It was a collapse of sensation and a contraction of being, distinct from harmonious beauty, that emerged from disorder, silence, and overwhelming power.

 

A stormy sea, the edge of a cliff, the voice of God—Burke's sublime is always present in moments that diminish the human scale. Today, we re-encounter this sensation in invisible vibrations, in structures beyond our perception, or in sounds we cannot hear.

 

The 21st-century philosopher Timothy Morton extends this sensation into the realm of ecological thought. His concept of a "hyperobject" refers to non-localizable entities that exceed our grasp of time and space, such as climate change, radioactivity, or the planet Jupiter.

 

A hyperobject is a structure that exists both outside of us and within us simultaneously, disrupting our senses at a level prior to cognition. Morton redefines the sublime as an ecological resonance where the decentering of being and a sense of powerlessness intersect.

 

Can this sensation, then, be "heard"?

 

We generally perceive sound as a medium for information or emotion. However, listening in Tilt is an opportunity to encounter sound as a revealer of the very texture of existence.

 

When low frequencies vibrate the body and the boundaries of sound dissolve, the body is no longer a subject that hears, but a sensory being placed within the sound itself.

 

This sound does not reveal a whole. It drifts between silence and repetition, arriving at a resonance that precedes interpretation.

 

Listening can touch the sublime. Sound arrives before meaning, slowly passing through the layers of sensation.

 

Consciousness follows, and explanation quietly ceases. And the body remains, dwelling in that place.

 

This curatorial project poses a question: How can a philosophy that begins at the limits of sensation be transformed into an experience of being through the act of listening?

 

Burke and Morton, in the language of their respective eras, spoke of a magnitude of being that arrives from beyond the senses.

 

Now, their thoughts reach us through the most subtle and powerful of vibrations: sound.

 

This curation is proposed not merely as an exercise in auditory appreciation, but as a philosophical act that re-examines existence and sensation.

 

By momentarily dwelling at the boundary of the senses, listening allows us to see existence anew.