Voicing the interface

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Voicing the interface

• Acousmatic voice and mediated vocal space in
  contemporary music theatre

Studientag der AG Musik-Theater Dresden, Hellerau
9 October 2005
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• Die Stimme ist kein abgrenzbarer Gegenstand,
  kein Ding, sondern ein raumgreifendes, ja
  raumschaffendes akustisches Geschehen (Doris
  Kolesch 274).
• Voice is what reaches across and between these
  segments, maintaining their continuity. Voice is
  the tenor and the tensor of speech, what binds or
  holds it together (Steven Connor 2).
• The presence of voice is a staged presence,
  enacted in the event of hearing. This event is
  dialogic an over-hearing and a carrying-over of
  the voice of the other. The voice of the other
  first becomes a voice in the carrying-over of
  metaphor (Richard Aczel 705).
• Voice is a structure of stresses and strains,
  and is pitched against itself, as well as
  standing out against the surrounding silence or
  noise (Steven Connor 2).
• A human voice structures the sonic space that
  contains it (Chion 1999 2).

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• Acousmatization of voice
• Musicalization of voice
• Marking the interface (self-referentiality)
• Loss of immediacy
• Spatial interaction
• Inwardness
• A cinema for the ears (Francis Dhomont)
• A theatre of the mind

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Men in Tribulation Eric Sleichim, Transparant
Bl!ndman (Holland Festival 2004)
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Post-Artaud
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• Cathartic sound effect The spectator feels
  surrounded to the point of surrendering (Dennis
  Hollier 166).
• Spatial mimesis the positioning and movement
  of sound in the virtual space between the
  loudspeakers in a way that is based on,
  reminiscent of or represents different aspects of
  our perceived, conceived and lived experiences of
  space (Cathy Lane 3).

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Fetishistic audiophilias chief impulse is the
desire to separate the sound of music from the
body performing it, so effecting an audio-visual
split between music and musician (Corbett 1990
85 qtd. in Jonathan Burston 210).
Fetishistic audiophilia
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Fetishization of autonomous sound
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• Fetishization of autonomous sound worked to
  widen the gap between the bodies of performers
  and the sound of their music (Corbett 91).
• Fetishistic audiophilia allows for the next
  step in the fetishization of autonomous sound
  the elimination of the musician (qtd. in
  Jonathan Burston 210).

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• Audio-autism
• Mentral representation, abstraction, imagination
• Inwardness
• Surrounded by a wrap-around superfield, a
  sonic aquarium (Michel Chion)
• Concert attitude of listening (Peter Kivy)

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• Wordless
• Yannis Kyriakides

A suite of 12 sound pieces for headphones and PA
based on recordings of interviews by and of
Brussels residents from the BNA/BBOT archives.
The recordings are edited in such a way as to
leave everything but the words. This is then
resampled. The wordless interviews are
mixed binaurally for the headphones, while the
rest of the musical material comprising of
resonances, pulses and noise are mixed in the
space, so that there is a play between
internal and external sound sources. The duration
is 54 minutes. Commissioned by the Argos
Festival, Belgium, Oct 2004.
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• 10. Blind
• Born with minimal eyesight, he slowly lost all
  his vision as he was growing up. In the interview
  he explains how blind people go about their lives
  in the world of seeing and what kind of
  appliances and devices are used to help. He
  doesnt rule out anything as impossible, he even
  names photography as one of his obsessions. He
  explains how sighted people experience unsighted
  people and vice versa.

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Blindmans music
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• An acoustic outside Not the possibility of
  hearing what one sees, but the exact opposite,
  the possibility of hearing what one doesnt see.
  Instead of folding the sound track back onto the
  surface of the screen, the sound unfolds as its
  outside, provides it with an outside (Dennis
  Hollier 163).

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http//home.medewerker.uva.nl/p.m.g.verstraete