The stillness of art runs counter to its reception. For viewers and readers, images and accompanying texts ripple with sound. Recreating noisy worlds, they run wild with cackles, howls, hisses, and grunts, or they evoke more sonorous speech, song, or prayer. The ancient Maya of Central America and Mexico left many reflections of sound. Some occur as glyphic texts; others exist visually as marks of vocalization. In this talk, Stephen D. Houston, professor of anthropology, Brown University, reports on these lost worlds of experience. He suggests how we might listen in, participating, by Maya intent, as witnesses who confirm truths brought as visual and textual hearsay. Introduced by Bryan Just, Peter Jay Sharp, Class of 1952, Curator and Lecturer in the Art of the Ancient Americas.
Free registration via Zoom here. (when prompted, click to sign in as “attendee”)
This event will include live closed captions in both English and Spanish. English captions are available directly in the Zoom toolbar by clicking the "CC" icon. To access Spanish-language captioning, open Streamtext, where you can select “Spanish” to see the live captioning.
Para acceder a los subtítulos en varios idiomas, ingrese al seminario web de Zoom durante un evento en vivo, luego abra un navegador web separado para visitar esta página donde puede seleccionar "español" o el idioma de su elección.
LATE THURSDAYS! This event is part of the Museum’s Late Thursdays programming, made possible in part by Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970. This program, including live closed-captioning, is made possible by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Curtis W. McGraw Foundation.
