Silence as Utterance: the Membrane of Urban Topology

Abstract

Introduction. The article considers silence as a boundary between the public and the private, the crossing of which can be interpreted as a breach, but also as the formation of a new public image. If we rely on the conclusions of Hannah Arendt, then with multiple intersections not just an image of publicity is created, but a special locus of the political with its own boundaries. The image becomes an expression of action, indignant or reproachful silence becomes a political act, goes beyond the usual speech and becomes a performance, a step forward.

 Methodology and sources. I analyze, using the phenomenological method and the critique of discourse, the various manifestations of vita activa, the active life, associated with silence: the declaration of oneself in a silent gesture, the declaration as an appearance preceding the word, rapprochement. I prove that method and critique are embedded in the topological structure of the city, with its spaces of the possible acts. The image of the membrane, introduced by Gilbert Simondon and developed in Judith Butler's performative theory, becomes key here.

 Results and discussion. The membrane is the modus of possibility in which the urban topics of interactions turns into a topology of silence as action, writhing, insistent, confident. The city itself produces no certainty, but the membrane of the city's revitalization, when both its architecture and its everyday life become alive, produces the certainty of joint action. This is no longer an agreement, open or tacit, but that silence which turns itself inside out and anticipates new constructive arrangements of citizens, contributing to the constitution of civil society.

 Conclusion. The obtained results allow us to clarify the notions of public space, performativity of speech and addressing the other, as well as to identify the boundaries of the image of the Other without reducing them to individual cognitive or practical situations. Silence can be understood no longer as part of figures of speech, but as part of the topology of speech and the topology of the city at one time, as part of the dynamic intermediation between different social positions.