Katherine what how why

1

A talk with music and images before a screening to introduce the theme of voice and contextualise what is to follow in relation to an exhibition. A screening of three artists films looking at voice with three related presentations by a choreographer, an art historian and an artist.

The screening comes from research for a project looking at voices in public. The films helped me articulate my concerns in the early research stages and have remained important throughout. The co-presenters have been asked to respond with the aim that participating will bring something to their own research.

I choose to include presentations of other artist’s work within project budgets where they exist. This is an attempt to acknowledge the collective nature of knowledge production. It opens space for discussion. It allows for a more expansive expression of research than can fit within an art work alone.

2

A lecture-performance via skype to introduce a video followed by a disastrous Q and A. This is part of an art/music/whatever festival in a pub looking at cultural regurgitation. My performance/video looks at representation, patriarchy, and pop music. It is hardcore. The audience are speechless.

I wrote a quick proposal and was surprised it was accepted. The guy running the festival is punky and enthusiastic. He tells me the skype element is a must do when I wobble and want to just show the video. He finds the failure epic and sends me positive feedback.

I knew I would be away for the festival and was keen to use this to explore liveness through a remote performance where the technology in the space is controlled by someone present. I wrongly anticipated that not being able to see the audience would make me less nervous.

3

A transcript of a conversation between three artists. The conversation explores reading aloud in public. It widens to include themes of presentation and rehearsal and the interplay between from and content. The transcript is loosely reread in the context of collaboratively-run recording experiment. A new conversation is recorded.

I initiated the conversation in response to a collaborative exhibition by two artists. We recorded the conversation. I transcribed it and we collectively agreed its content. I was invited to work within another collective’s sound residency. I invited the artists from the conversation to talk about the transcript there.

All of the artists involved have some crossovers of research interests. Although we had not all produced together before, we had all talked about work and were familiar with each others’ practices. We share an interest in experimentation with process and in working collaboratively. These recordings are still in use.

1

‘Resonant bodies: embodied female voice on screen’ was a film screening with four spoken presentations initiated by KM to accompany her exhibition ‘polyvcal subjects’. This was presented as an attempt to acknowledge the collective nature of knowledge production. The audience entered the cinema to music by Sir Shina Peters and a description of the prominence in his wikipedia entry of a newspaper quote making fun of his use of english. Using quotes from her research and conversations undertaken as part of her exhibition KM presented an analysis of the cultural assumptions regarding gender and race underpinning traditional psychological theories of language acquisition and questioned articulacy as a norm.

Each film was preceded by a different form of spoken presentation by speakers from different backgrounds with a broad common interest in voice in varying forms. Ursula Biemann’s ‘Performing the Border’ was introduced with a formal presentation by AC, an art historian, who questioned the artists devoicing of the films subjects while laying claim to make their struggle visible. LM, an artist researching inner voice, initiated a discussion on the use of acusmatic voice in Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby’s ‘New Freedom Founders Trilogy’ by using you tube clips of classic movies. SL, choreographer, introduced Manon de Boer’s ‘resonating surfaces’ by reading from a text reflecting on conversations with friends about kinaesthetic gestures and song as sites of agency and resistance.

The event was initiated by KM in the early stages of developing the exhibition. During a research visit to the ARGOS archive in Brussels the outline of a thematic programme emerged and this selection was used as a point of reference by KM during the production of the exhibition. The presenters were invited to participate because of the significance of voice in their research. The invitation did not make specifications as to form or content apart from an intention that participating in the process be an opportunity to develop something of their own research. The format of the event was developed through correspondence between KM, AC, LM and SL over several months.

KM’s work has been expanding out of the edges of exhibition format for several years. ‘polyvocal subjects’ has been the fullest expression of this expansion to date with performances, public and private workshops and screenings working alongside the exhibition to consider the theme of public speech from different viewpoints and through different experiential modalities. The development of ‘Resonant Bodies’ was an integral part of the research process for the whole project and an acknowledgment of the development of through many voices.

2

As part of a festival looking at cultural regurgitation I do a lecture-performance via skype followed by a disastrous Q and A. It sits in a programme of field recordings, two bands and a talk. The audience is probably predominantly a music audience but I am unable to see them on skype as the space is in darkness.

I devise a proposal responding to the festival theme. I make a video about the subversive interview techniques used by an 80s pop star to regain agency in her media representation and write an introductory text about found footage, feminism and Ru Paul.

I cannot be present and use this limitation to consider liveness through the manipulation of the technology in the space by someone present. My performance looks at representation, patriarchy, and pop music and actualises these themes through a format designed to induce discomfort in both performer and the audience.

3

A transcript of a conversation between three artists - KM, RW, AB. The conversation initially explores reading aloud in public. The transcript is loosely reread in the context of collaboratively-run recording experiment. A new conversation is recorded. It includes themes of presentation and rehearsal and the interplay between form and content.

KM initiated the conversation in response to a collaborative exhibition by RW and AB. We recorded the conversation. KM transcribed it and we collectively agreed its content. KM was invited to work in response to a sound recording set up developed by another group of artists. KM asked RW and AB to talk about the transcript there and make a new recording of this conversation.

The artists involved work in different ways with sound and currently share an interest in how ideologies use the structures of sound. Although we had not all produced together before, we had all talked about work and were familiar with each others’ practices. We share an interest in experimentation with process without reaching final product collaborative authorship. These recordings are still in use.