Piecing together Conversation

Conversation Piece III

Juan Muñoz’s ‘Conversation Piece III’, 2001 has stood against the backdrop of Margate’s shifting sky at the Turner Contemporary since 26 March 2013. It portrays a fascinating interaction between figures connecting and disconnecting within the frame of a ‘conversation’. There is a real haphazardness in the arrangement of their interaction, but a beauty too in their momentary, separate and almost accidental collisions. In spite of the sense that their exchanges add up to very little, their mute signals inhabit the space nonetheless. Each is made different by the gesture they make within, or toward the conversation. Bound in bronze, the figures are also very much a collective: they are privy to the same shifts of the same sky and for all of their stutters, they are, incidentally, listening out for something... 

My Dictaphone stood empty, just for a week, of Margate conversations. A reflection was long overdue. To date 5 exchanges have been recorded, transcribed word-by-word and written, deliberated over and then re-written. Pressing round, red circled, record was always simple enough. Thereafter, inside the ‘play’ and ‘stop’ lay the duty of conservation: a conservation of the essence of each conversation.

Distilling the essence means revisiting the exchange as it happened, re-listening to the voice as it spoke in that one particular moment. Luring them out of the Dictaphone to life again was a familiar process. Press angular play: voice airs out loud, sounding from the speckled speaker. Press squared stop: stunted silence. Rewind: transcribe. Reread: imbibe.  Each is a catalogue of talking, pausing, furrowed browed thought, occasional laughter, questions and more talking. Salt suffusions pervade them all, and with each variance comes a certain confluence by virtue of their shared setting. And yet, Margate’s multifarious voices make their own, distinct stirrings in the air. The conservation process has opened my eyes to the beauty of difference.

First, gravelly ease: finding and selling, finding and selling, finding and selling, for years upon years. An enthusiasm for the difference that lay within each find and each sale splintered the rhythm. This was 17 minutes, 54 seconds of conversation.

Second, capacious warmth: tea, chinking, commonalities, laughter, tea, arm chairs, sitting, mother hen clucks, creating, curiosity, tea, utopia, ledgers, gaffer tape, tea, more, more, more to come. This was 1 hour and 25 minutes, 14 seconds of conversation (and conversation returned for since!)

Third, islanded visions: envisaging: an insight into the visionary. This was 55 minutes, 34 seconds, deceptive; many pauses lingered and expanded between our words, our separate worlds.

Fourth, reunion: walking and talking around the starting point, digression to anecdotes and a walk back to the point from which we started. This was 25 minutes and 46 seconds of pacey, softened gabble.

Fifth, hushed solitude: reflections, out loud utterances and rifling the pages interrupted the quiet in the library. It was a preservation of layers and an acknowledgement of the spaces between. A considered conversation: 1 hour 17 minutes and 49 seconds.

Each have been insightful, privileged glimpses of one person’s vantage point, which arises from a distinctly unique trajectory. I am indebted to each individual and to the capacity of conversation to enable an exchange of observations within the parameters it affords. Each conversation furnishes Margate with a different texture, provides it with a different gesture. Variable factors within the 'play' and 'stop' of conversation, let alone the trajectory spanning before, include: the individual, the weather, the chair in which we sit, the direction we face, the knowledge we share, the ease of the flow, etcetera, etcetera. And yet, for every difference, they are not stranded, separate pieces; they are Margate, privy to the same shifts of the same sky. 

On another note, my finger is itching to press round, red circled, record again. Fancy it?

Email me: moyastirrup@gmail.com

With thanks to Emily, who I owe for the extended loan of aforementioned Dictaphone, and who I have far too many unrecorded conversations in Margate with.