ABSTRACT
In their interpretations of soundscapes of the human–divine encounter, Michael Serres and R. Murray Schafer seem to be in opposition with each other, when hearkening “dense silence” or ear-deafening noise in these soundscapes. This is evident in the following discussion:
For the last two hours this morning I have been tasting the sun in the theatre at Epidaurus, alone, reclining against one of the steps. […] Peace in the transparent air, yellow and blue. Silence. The countryside awaits the gods — it has been waiting for two thousand years. Silence. The gods will descend, healing will come. A question mark on the sky’s axis, visible from passing planes, an immense ear bathed in the precisely tuned acoustic properties of the amphitheatre. I listen, I wait, in the dense silence. […] The silence within the theatre and in the surrounding scrub seeps into my skin, bathes and penetrates it, vibrates and drains it, in the hollow of the empty ear. […] Alone on this step, sitting in silence for the last two hours, little by little the world gives me its gods (Serres 2008, pp. 85–86).
