Reading the texts of the Desafinado column [of the WAP blog], a question came to my mind:
Does improvisation say anything about the sexual non-relation? Let me try to answer this by means of free association following an improvised stream.
Another question: what drives us to listen to an unheard, unrepeatable piece of music that cannot be known until it is being played? Does this not bring to the fore the current value of the unheard (of) in a context where everything has to be predictable, calculated and stuck into an algorithm?
The unheard (of) can also be another name for contingency. Is playing music, or listening to a concert of improvised music not a way of elevating the unexpected to the dignity of a work of art?
The unheard (of) may also be another name for surprise, for an encounter that could take place against the background of the removal of the fantasy that kept repeating the same impossible encounter between the sexes. It is necessary to have cleared the music score of the writing's fixity that the fantasy imposed, in order to reveal the blank page where the impossible relation between music and referent emerges.
If no space is given to the blank page, the unheard cannot propagate its waves; it remains background noise, a disturbing cacophony.
But there is no harmony or chord.
Unheard (of) is also the name of the non-relation between past, present and future. It is a point in time when Lacan's statement becomes present: "That one say remains forgotten behind what is said in what is heard." [Qu'on dise reste oublié derrière ce qui se dit dans ce qui s'entend.]1 Castration is inherent in speech; something is irretrievably lost, yet it leaves traces in the existence of the speaking body.
Therefore, can the unheard (of) also be another way of naming the sexual non-relation?
These very lines are something unheard (of) for the one who is writing them, as they are the unexpected echo produced by reading the other contributions, which resonated with my experience of music and psychoanalysis.
[1] Jacques Lacan, "L'étourdit", Autres Écrits, ed. Seuil, 2001, p. 449, Unpublished in English.
