I recently saw a work of art that got me thinking quite deeply about communication.
Nikita Gale’s TEMPO RUBATO (STOLEN TIME), consisting of a modified player piano, audio, and a lighting system, is currently exhibited as part of the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Gale describes the installation as “a player piano that has been programmed to silently play back a series of piano performances by various pop musicians,” which tells you what you see and hear, but not so much what you feel when you are in the installation’s presence.
Gale created TEMPO RUBATO after asking herself questions about how performance is defined and how it can be property—she consulted with representatives of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, which licenses public performance rights of its members about just how much the labor of musicians is protected (or not).
Observing the installation, I was almost immediately hit with a deeply troubling feeling of absence. Player pianos are always a little creepy (for me, at least). There is just something about seeing the piano keys moving and a melody being played with no one there that I find unsettling. Then you start thinking (if it’s an old roll) that the person who originally played it is probably long dead, and that you are effectively listening to a ghost. And there’s the whole machine-doing-human-stuff dynamic: seeing a piano played with personality and subtlety, with no live human behind the wheel, is disorienting for me. Side note—to immerse myself in this, I’m listening to a collection of Scott Joplin’s hand-played piano rolls.
So standing next to Gale’s installation, I felt intensely uneasy. You’ve got to see (and hear) it to really appreciate it, but I will try to explain. You watch the keys depress but don’t hear notes—just a muffled thud. You get a sense of rhythm, of someone trying to play something beautiful for you, but there isn’t anything to hum along to.
Diving deeper into why I found Gale’s installation so disturbing, I realized that what hit home so powerfully was the notion of someone trying to communicate and failing. I had a mental picture of a composer penning a melody that would tell the world how they felt, that would bring them closer to others, that would give listeners something to bring them together. They play their heart out, and the world only hears quiet clicks that don’t register as music for most.
(One interesting question that Gale hinted at is, “Is this still music?” Got me thinking about the ringing telephones sometimes captured in Sun Ra recordings—as at the 3:52 and 7:46 mark of “Adventure Equation”—are they part of the song? Because they somehow fit.)
And so, while trying to soak up some culture and appreciate art, I found myself thinking about my day job. Ombuds work centers on communication and conflict—most of the time, on conflicts about communication. And I thought about the people I talk with every day, many of whom are trying to tell those around them something and not being heard, which brought to mind my post about wishful hearing. And all the ways that people say what they don’t mean, or have what they mean to say misconstrued. Which is, when you think about it, quite a bummer.
There is something horrifying about seeing miscommunication, to quote T.S. Eliot, spread out “Like a patient etherized upon a table.” But there’s also something clarifying in seeing those keys move and click with unexpectedly muted sounds—it practically screams “This is what an unheard message feels like.”
Extracting a positive lesson from a confrontation with beautifully disturbing art, I guess I would tell you that we can’t always predict what people are going to hear when we talk with them. That not-quite-silenced piano told me, “So if this is all they hear when you play the piano—you’d better try something else.”
The possibility other approaches, and the undeniable fact that Gale created something that triggered such deep thinking perhaps in unintended ways tells me that artists can communicate things to us even in ways that they don’t intend. Or maybe it’s just a testimonial to the power of wishful hearing.
The day I observed Tempo Rubato, I was peeling back some thoughts about a book that I read repeatedly as a child and shared with my own children, My Father’s Dragon. The author, Ruth Styles Gannett, had just passed away at the age of 100, which brought the book, published in 1948, to mind. The gist of her story is that a nine-year-old boy (the narrator’s father) befriends a well-traveled stray cat living who tells him about a baby dragon being held cruelly captive on Wild Island. The father stows away on a cargo ship, armed with a remarkably specific collection of obscure items that help him overcome various obstacles: seven pieces of bubble gum, for example, satisfy seven hungry tigers who want to eat him, and a toothbrush and toothpaste that do wonders for a rhinoceros self-conscious about his yellowed tusk.
I think that, having read it (and having it read to me) as an impressionable child, this book profoundly shaped my future life. Not in the sense that I ran away from home looking for baby dragons to rescue, but it is probably responsible for an irrepressible tendency to approach roaming cats with expectations of adventure. Not that I think that we are going to have extended conversations about their world travels but, you never know, they might just need a friend. Something in this story communicated the idea that it is good to be kind to animals in a way that resonated perfectly.
I never met Ms. Gannett. I was born decades after she published her book. But she wrote something that had a real impact on my worldview, and a lasting one. I imagine that she wrote the book to be a positive influence on children. It worked. That is a triumph of intentional communication.
It seems, then, that if we have enough skill, if we have the right message, and if the listener is ready to hear it, we can say something that hits the target and makes a difference. All we need to do is keep trying.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
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