Point of Contact On Silence

Framed by a visual and conceptual homage to avant-garde composer and philosopher John Cage, the cover for this 2001 edition On Silence signals an attention to perception, restraint, and the expressive power of what is left unsaid.

Inside, essays and conversations, poetry and visual works move across disciplines and geographies from film to canvas, to ballet, to poetry. Art works produced for this edition include work by Nam June Paik, Marco Maggi, Panayotis Michael, Elkita Krajewska, and Ana Tiscornia. Essays and conversations reveal the inspired and complex voices of Raimon Panikkar, Jeffrey Mehlman, Peter Wollen, Robert Ashley Trisha Brown and Andrew Waggoner.

This edition reflects Cage’s enduring influence not by literal silence alone, but by encouraging readers to pay close attention to voices, pauses, gestures, and the spaces between words, where meaning quietly takes shape.

The digital version of this Point of Contact edition is accessible here, or in print, available for purchase through Punto Shop.