Thanks Ruth and Mark for paying attention - that is stimulating.
Ruth :
the voice, the voices - how I understand it is that the voice is what makes
a text, an idea an unique expression in a relation. It is the voice that
loads words with affect and makes it an address to someone. (I'm still
processing the quote on Bakthin by Lazzarato) It is the voice that filters
the possible significations of the words to one unique expression.
No, I don't think there is "a voice" in the written word, not the same way
at least. I can imagine that an extended range of voices you have access to,
does influence your thought and writing. If a voice is an affective address,
and if you can "change" voices, you get access to different registers of
affect and address, your content as a consequence becomes richer, more
diversified... Your style could change ...
Maybe we should ask Curt Cloninger to react to this - he is the one who put
me on the track of Bakthin. See here in his article on glitch (yes glitch)
http://lab404.com/glitch/
Here are some Bakhtin quaotes from his article.
"Language enters life through concrete utterances (which manifest language)
and life enters language through concrete utterances as well. The utterance
is an exceptionally important node of problems.
Only the contact between the language meaning and the concrete reality that
takes place in the utterance can create the spark of expression. It exists
neither in the system of language nor in the objective reality surrounding
us. Thus, emotion, evaluation, and expression are foreign to the word of
language and are born only in the process of its live usage in a concrete
utterance.
Each text (both oral and written) includes a significant number of various
kinds of natural aspects devoid of signification... but which are still
taken into account (deterioration of manuscript, poor diction, and so
forth). There are not nor can there be any pure texts. In each text,
moreover, there are a number of aspects that can be called technical (the
technical side of graphics, pronunciation, and so forth)."
My interest is foremost in what our voices do in our besides, performances,
how they function (when you don't see the person you are addressing), and
what they do with the objects.
To further investigate Martina and I planned to do a few short performances.
Three very short performances : One as usual, one without voices, but with
written text over the images of the things, and a third one with voices, but
no text, no content. let's hope we get invited to do so.
Mark :
There are so many things going on at the same time in our performances;
First of all it is a meeting between Martina and me. For us it is a way of
getting to know the other by collaborating in a performance context. And so,
yes it is always becoming.
The understanding of a text is always a part of a relation.
xxx
Have a nice weekend
Annie
Communication without words and closed eyes : http://bram.org/distantF/
On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 7:31 PM, ruth catlow <ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org>
wrote:
Thank you for sharing this Annie,
I have a question (I enjoyed reading the last Bakhtin quote
about voice).
Do you think that voice is also conveyed in the same way in the
written word?
I ask, because I recently participated in a residency in which a
writer was partnered with a voice coach. I was lucky enough to
have a session with the voice coach and feel that the extended
range of voices that I accessed through this session have added
range to my thought and writing.
Ruth
On 03/03/16 10:48, Annie Abrahams wrote:
light
This is a copy of my latest blogpost. I want to share it
here too, because it might be of interest to some of you
who are not connected to me otherwise.
(Next performance will be March 19th 20h in Im_Flieger in
Vienna)
Take care
Annie
We started out with three very different meetings (See
turbulence.org) and then decided to continue to explore
one of them further; we restricted ourselves to a theme
and made the project on ?meeting online =?also a research on
the relation between objects/things, text and the voice.
We began experiencing and experimenting the performances
as an other method of thinking together about both object
agency and online collaboration.
? We stage a collaborative performance project online.
? Meeting online =
? We are meeting online, trying to get more grip on what is
actually happening in online webcam communication.
? This is a research project where we use performance as a
tool.
? Using performance as a tool, is a way to create a common
responsibility.
? We use an interface which doesn?t permit that either of us
two can become dominant, an interface that has flaws,
glitches, bugs, an interface that cannot be domesticated.
? We are not developing a performance ? our performances are
part of a research process.
My performances are a research tool, not an object ansich,
not something to show off. (See allergic-to-utopias)
But the audience? Why should they be interested, What is
it for them? They can think with us!
So far :
besides, the person I am becoming 1/06 2015
There are :
? the interface : two webcam images side by side, one managed by
Martina, one by Annie. Both images have exactly the same size
and presence there is no power relation.
? a text : a remix, done together, of phrases read and heard,
collected over one month by Annie and Martina individually. We
determined before who would read what part of the text.
? objects : things : we will not use personal objects, things
with a very specific personal history and they should not be
too beautiful, as ordinary, casual, daily as possible.
What did we mean by that, why? We didn?t want things to be
symbols. We almost entirely excluded also natural objects as
flowers, leafs etc., because, they are already alive on their
own and so are too symbolically loaded too.
The objects were placed in front of the webcam at before
undetermined intervals.
? the hands : hands who lay down the objects carefully.
? two voices : as neutral as possible. Because the interface
merges the sound of both webcams in one stream, there is no
way for the audience to distinguish if a voice comes from the
one or from the other webcam. They can only hear that there
are two different voices, there is a dialogue.
What dialogue? Who is talking to who, who is addressed?
Who receives? The objects replace the faces we are used to
see in webcam images. We see them in close up ? they become
actors ? we can believe them to be intimate, to have a
relation. They too have a / are in dialogue. They too are
elements being in the event. (1)
This is where the two subjects meet. This is where we
meet.
In besides, the city is not a tree, 22/07 2015 we used a
different, more narrative, mix of the same text collection. We
decided to abandon the neutral voice and let the exchange be
more natural allowing for affect to transpire (2). We speeded
the rhythm and alternations.
Hands should be just careful installers, shouldn?t manipulate,
nor stay too long in the frame.
For besides, smaller than a single pixel 28/11 2015 we made a
new text collection. No natural objects at all were allowed
anymore. Would the perceived agency of the thing change if we
would enter and exit them at specific moments in the text? If
we stopped talking while changing the objects? Would the
objects become more present, have more influence if we allowed
for moments without text?
We stayed with speaking the text in an ordinary manner. Would
the dialogue be more fluent if we decided to use the texts
fragments randomly? Would that give more dialogical power to
our voices and rhythm? Would that help us to use text and
objects equally in our perform thinking experience?
We perform experimenting thinking together using words and
things and the affects transferred via our voices. We
experiment performing thinking together using words and
things and the affects transferred via our voices. We
think performing experiments together, We experiment
thinking performance together, We experiment performing
thought ?
(1) ?According to Bakhtin, in order to ?overcome? the separation and
opposition between art and life, between art and culture, the
elaboration of a ?first philosophy? is required: The philosophy of
event-being. Art and life cannot and must not tend towards
identification, as was the case with the Situationists, for
example. But, in order that the enriching, excessive and
productive difference between art and life be able to express
itself, it is necessary to possess a theory which, whilst
maintaining the irreducible differences between these two
dimensions, articulates them in the achievement of the event.?
Maurizio Lazzarato in Dialogism and Polyphony.
geocities.ws/immateriallabour/lazzarato-dialogism-and-polyphony.html
(2) ?According to Bakhtin, the voice or intonation, not yet
captured in the ?phonetic abstraction? of language, is always
produced ?on the threshold of the verbal and the non-verbal, the
said and the non-said? and it is through it that it addresses
itself to the other. This address is affective and
ethico-political rather than linguistic. It ?appropriates,
travels, avails itself of linguistic and semiotic elements,
confirms and drifts away, critiques and legitimates meanings
and established intonations?. ?????It is only when the voice penetrates
and appropriates words and statements that the latter loose
their linguistic potentiality and turn into actualised
expression. It is only at that moment that words and
statements are encumbered with the a unique and non
reproducible role in verbal exchange.? Maurizio Lazzarato
generation-online.org/p/fp_lazzarato6.htm
Notes on performance series besides, with Martina Ruhsam,
03 2016, Annie Abrahams
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