“A body, whatever it is, can defend its limit; it can refuse a particle from the outside, whatever it is.” (Jean Claude Polack)
Can a body defend its boundaries and if so, where do these boundaries run? This contribution experiments with the sound-aesthetic embodiment of three different voices and refers to an animistic notion of subjectivity. Doing so, the rationality of language is linked with the sensation and affective materiality of a voice enabling a creative approach to communication. Sonic Sources is an assemblage of feminine experiences. It is the result of pre-recorded empirical material merged with existing philosophical excerpts - a composition of texts by a choreographer, a passenger and a theoretician, set into voice-overs which will be both performed and observed by the audience.
Inspired by Robert Cantarella's performance "Faire le Gilles", the participants are invited to temporarily embody the feelings and thoughts of others by experiencing and repeating texts set into audio. Active listening, meaning, to feel the physical effects of an acoustic perception. Rhythm, frequency and intonation of the speech melodies are internalized in this process and then repeated. Repetitions of this kind are not ordinary copies but sensory processes carrying their own creative power within them. Theatricality is reduced to a minimum. Embodied re-enactment is not acting but performance with a phenomenological approach carried out in a social sense. Through the active embodiment of an auditory text, thinking connects with action, theory with practice, observation with participation. This fusion creates space for reflection on the act of learning and on the potential pedagogical effects of non-normative methods. Thereby the creation of experience and knowledge is at the forefront of the discussion, becoming tangible. Following this, the pedagogical scope of linguistic performativity can be critically discussed.
Annamaria Merkel is a multimedia artist based in Amsterdam. She is currently enrolled at the Master Department for Design of Experience at the Sandberg Instituut (NL), where she is researching methods for institutional interventions through poetry, performance and dance. Her artistic practice seeks to expose, question and challenge power structures and obsolete norms varying from gender troubles to postcolonial issues. She considers revolution as an extraordinarily designed experience that lies within a creative fusion of various cultures, intellectual worlds, institutional players and free spirits. A.M. Merkel holds a BA in Integrated Design from the University of Applied Sciences Cologne where she specialized in Gender Studies.
Annamaria Merkel is a multimedia artist based in Amsterdam. She is currently enrolled at the Master Department for Design of Experience at the Sandberg Instituut (NL), where she is researching methods for institutional interventions through poetry, performance and dance. Her artistic practice seeks to expose, question and challenge power structures and obsolete norms varying from gender troubles to postcolonial issues. She considers revolution as an extraordinarily designed experience that lies within a creative fusion of various cultures, intellectual worlds, institutional players and free spirits. A.M. Merkel holds a BA in Integrated Design from the University of Applied Sciences Cologne where she specialized in Gender Studies.