SHOWING WITHOUT GOING

Connections

Examples
Anna Rispoli

https://annarispoli.be/ywimm-brussels-take/

Your Word in my Mouth is a 're-performed' group discussion, read aloud by the audience from scripts. The piece immerses us in the private lives of several residents of [city changes depending on where its shown]. Brussels example: the residents include a polyamorist, a football-mad teenage girl, a notary specialised in matrimonial contracts, a sex assistant for people with disabilities... This unlikely encounter is 're-staged' in a series of venues usually reserved for an in-crowd: a hairdresser’s, a radio studio, the lounge of a brothel, a parliament… Members of the audience are invited to lend their voices to other people’s words and play them. How do these “alien” words sound in our own mouths? A conversation based on profound citizenship in which love might just open up new political perspectives.

Approaches

Making a deliberate decision to present only the voice may assist the ‘making present’ of those who cannot be physically present (for example, those who can’t show their face). 

The term ‘acousmatic sound’ means an invisible sound source, and can be relevant to voice. The term comes from ‘the Acousmatics’, pupils of the philosopher Pythagoras who listened to him deliver his lectures from behind a curtain (it was thought that visual distraction would impinge on the purity of his teachings.) In acousmatic art, one hears sound from behind a "veil" of loudspeakers, the source invisible.

#illusionofpresence

Approaches

To create a physical or virtual space where people meet to share any text, usually reading aloud.  Sometimes the reading has a 'moderator' who assigns who reads what and when, and maintains other basic rules. The creator of the written text, if known, may or may not be present. 

#participation #tools