Experiments in Being Together · Prototype 00
Silent Party
Spoken conversation is suspended for the central portion of the party.
The research logic
Research specification
- Familiar condition
- Spoken conversation organizes most party interaction and hosting.
- Underlying structure
- Social competence and availability get judged through speed, verbal fluency, hearing norms, and willingness to speak.
- Alteration
- Spoken conversation is suspended for the central portion. Gesture, movement, writing, signage, visual systems, food, dance, and a shared communication lexicon carry interaction instead.
- Hypothesis
- If speech loses its default authority, participants may redistribute attention across gesture, proximity, movement, visual cue, and silence, making the social labor normally carried by speech easier to perceive.
- What it tests
- Conditions shape participation. Multimodal sociality. Silence as participation. Consequential inequality among communication modes.
- Encounter
- Gesture, movement, writing, signage, visual systems, food, dance and a shared communication lexicon carry the interaction instead. Lighting, spatial design and sound replace the conventional authority of spoken hosting. The evening ends with a ceremonial return to speech.
- Complication
- Silence is not automatically inclusive. Removing speech can produce new exclusions, especially where visual, written, spatial, or sensory alternatives are poorly designed. The work does not treat Deaf and hard-of-hearing people as evidence for a hearing-centered experiment.
The originating prototype, and the first Experiments in Being Together event. Sociability is normally demonstrated through verbal fluency, quick response, and spoken availability. For the central portion of this evening, that requirement is lifted.
The public artifact is an illustrated communication lexicon, an event score, a collaborative silent artwork, and consent-based documentation. Deaf and hard-of-hearing participation is welcomed and compensated under the standing paid co-design policy if it occurs. The party does not borrow sacred silence practices as decoration.
The ask
Host it or hear when it runs
Venues, festivals, and organizations can host this work. Everyone else can leave an address for the first public date.
Fifteen minutes on a call works too. Find a time →
Where this stream came from
These experiments grew from questions first made visible through COURAGE: Nude Yoga, a recurring Charles Mindful Wellness Practice Site.
COURAGE made participation, privacy, observation, consent, refusal, and the rules of the room visible as design material.
This work alters one of those social conditions deliberately.
No date yet
Hear when it runs
Leave an address for this Experiment only. You will hear when a public date is set.