silent speech

is the assumption that meaning is lodged in all the mute things of the world (such as a woman's face or a building) but that it is an obstacle to meaning and remains silent unless it is deciphered and spoken for.

As one of the central features of the aesthetic regime of art, silent speech is the contradictory conjunction between two elements of this regime. On the one hand, meaning is taken to be immanent in things themselves and, thus, everything from a building's facade to a woman's face takes on a voice of its own. On the other hand, however, the mute things of the world only begin to speak if someone deciphers their latent meaning and speaks for them (otherwise they remain completely silent). This contradiction has given birth to at least two major forms of silent speech: the latent meaning beneath the hieroglyphic surface of written signs and the brute presence or punctum that remains a deaf and silent obstacle to all forms of signification' (Rancière 2000: 91-92). Rancière, Jacques. 2000. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Continuum: New York.

silent speech, n.Definitions

silent speech