THE RHETORICS OF DIALOGUE

"It was only when I heard how you understood me that I knew what I had said." Oswald Wiener

Blackmarkets are based on the concept of dialogue, as a "flowing through meaning". At the Blackmarket knowledge is not given as a lecture, but told as a story. Knowledge is not information that can be called up, but a matter to be negotiated between the client and the expert in the act of communication. This also means dealing with knowledge as lies, as simulation, as promises, as betrayal, as a paralinguistic phenomena and as silence. What counts here is not what one knows, but how one knows and how one can pass it on. Complex yet charming exchanges take place between expert and client in order to keep the process of informing, communicating and understanding in motion, and to help it succeed.

Seven experts will reflect on their different professions and how the dialogue is a constitutive element of their working process.

Geoffrey Beattie
Head of School and Dean of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester. He has published 15 books and has been the resident psychologist on all seven "Big Brother" series.
1. The gestures in a dialogue: talking with hands
2. The role of silence in a dialogue

Richard Bentall
Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Bangor. His most recent book "Madness Explained" (2003) received the British Psychological Society Book Award.
Dialogues with people who are not there: The nature of auditory hallucination

Anne Hesketh
Speech and Language Therapist, researching and teaching at the University of Manchester.
How to talk to someone who can't: Communicating with people after a stroke

Steve Naylor
Detective Superintendent and part of Liverpool Police Force's Major Incident Team, accredited Senior Investigative Officer.
Theory and practice of interviewing witnesses and suspects involved in major crime

Julia Nelki
Child Psychiatrist in community multidisciplinary service and lead of school based mental health service for refugee children, Liverpool.
Dialogues with children in impossible situations: What is it like to be a refugee?

Roger Phillips
Broadcaster on BBC Radio Merseyside since the early 1970s.
How to talk to people you can't see: Dynamics of the radio phone-in

Imogen Stidworthy
Artist whose work addresses aspects of language in her installations, sound and video works. "My focus is on communication and the roles of speech and language in performing and de?ning it. Working with speech as a sculptural material opens out dimensions of space, body, sound, architecture, thought and language of the voice".
Languages and their borders, shibboleths and other vehicles and obstacles in the process of communication. With reference to her work and in particular the aphasic dialogue

see also Encyclopedia (Installation with 50 Experts) and Shadow Play for a Dialogue Duo