The Sound of Presence," 1/1.
Noise is the sound we learn to tune out at no small cost to our health. Noise is a signal of danger, distress, energy inefficiency, or incivility so our primal selves are highly reactive to it. It is constant in most human population centers. We cannot flee in terror from every honking horn, rumbling lawnmower, or ear-splitting siren without risk of exhaustion. According to acoustic ecologists, quiet is not the absence of sound but the absence of noise. So quiet is not silent. Quiet is defined as "presence."

Copyright retained by the artist. Michelle Louis, 2022, Created in Wisconsin/USA, 1/1 abstract.