Talking: letting out gas

During an interview, Federico Fellini said that he does not to like talk about films in the process of making, or before it’s completed. It is a kind of superstition he prefers to keep. Whatever esoteric rationales he had for such a belief, I begin to relate it to the many times when ideas I had were not realised after they were said or discussed with too many people. This is especially true when the idea was mentioned to those not directly related it. By talking about it, the desire to produce the work somehow evaporates. We all know evaporation does not mean disappearance. In science, evaporation describes a change in the physical state of matter: dissolution not disappearance. But we seldom mind using it as a metaphorical substitution for the word ‘disappearance’, of what cease to exist.

Therefore, this is not necessarily because talking is an antithetical act to concrete production, rather it is an act of production in its most minimalist form: gas. It is a difference of degree, not type. The idea turned into a form of representation through our speech, by our talks and gestures, during conversations, is a form even more intangible and ephemeral than the idea itself. Letting others hear about your idea too soon, before anything is done at all, you will receive suggestions or comments that mutilate the idea like a premature review or a critique that would trigger a foetal death of the idea. This often is the case despite their good intentions, regardless if it was a good or bad review.

By associating talking to gas emitting, a fairly visceral analogy comes to mind – an inverted reflection, to be precise.

A person suffering from constipation, most of the time, seems no different to a person with a clear bowel, like the similarity between a failed writer and a loafer, they both share the similar effects of nothingness – which is to say that both of them didn’t shit. However, this similarity is only apparent. The former farts more often – be it loud or silent. Talking about an idea is very much like this physical symptom common to one suffering from constipation. You have an idea, you can’t concretise it yet, you talked about it instead. You have the urge to shit, but you couldn’t, you fart instead, the toilet bowl was as clean as before you sat on it, but you flushed it anyway.

For those, who disapprove this slightly scatological example, we can also think of it as opening a can of beer or Coke, letting the gas out and only to drink it three hours later. This instance was drawn by the plights of many fine art students and artists who have to keep talking about their proposal to too many people,. And when it is the time to do the work, they would feel like they are drinking stale beer and Coke without fizzle, but with taste diluted by the melted ice cubes.

Of course, apart from the above, there are many other reasons why we talk. We talk to impress, to brag about ourselves, the things we have, the things we know - our bank deposit, and mental capacity, respectively; we talk because it built us the bridge of intimate relationships; we talk because we are anxious or worried about something; we talk to others our problems to share it, thus to pass the burden, the problem, to another; and we talk about an idea for a painting or writing because we have been thinking about it; we talk because we couldn’t keep a secret, because gossiping is a past time.. But if only we could hold it, hold our breath for a moment. And let it sublimate or mediate to a more concrete form.

Weren’t we instructed to keep away from the concrete when it is still wet? I now read it as an instruction to keep one’s prolificacy. A reminder of the emptiness of almost every speech act. Talk is really cheap.