The mention of flies: chance, environment, depiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT Acting as a bridge over the river of “academic” and “artistic” contributions to this special edition, this article explores zones of chance (with a particular focus on Surrealist objective chance and the work of English Professor Wendy Wheeler); environment (often relating to the motion of a river and the mention of various of insects, revolving around the author’s attempts to listen with tinnitus to the environment, and to listen with the environment to tinnitus); and depiction (notably the work of the painters Edvard Munch and Gastone Novelli, the poet Robert Grenier, and the philosopher Michel Serres). Placed in relation to the author’s own lived experiences with tinnitus, these zones are channeled into the undulation of a wave symbol (〰), in an attempt to acknowledge, hold, and communicate different lived experiences and possibilities of tinnitus. As such, each zone may be read either as part of as whole, in any order.