‘threaded insert’ for Tears in Rain at PAW 2017

‘threaded insert’ on Sun 24th September at Plymouth Athenaeum

I will perform a new work, ‘threaded insert’ as part of a group project Tears in Rain for Plymouth Art Weekender 2017 at Plymouth Athenaeum, on Sunday 24th September. Tears in Rain is a day-long event bringing together a range of practices by artists whose work uses live or performance elements, alongside participation, moving image and installation. The programme mixes durational and installed work with timed events and actions, and the Athenaeum Auditorium shapes and influences the work. The project includes new works and works adapted to suit this particular context with actions happening throughout the space, projections, a lecture, one-to-one interaction and improvised responses to the site. The artists in Tears in Rain are: Mo Bottomley / Katrina Brown / Mark Leahy / Steven Paige / Marcy Saude / Minou Tsambika

In ‘threaded insert’ I receive via headphones a series of instructions, for orientation, movement, speech, and other actions including spelling words, randomly selected from a database of short audio files. The content derives from guides and instructions for ‘proper’ speech, rules for social and public behaviour, and control or modification of the body. I will perform the work three times over the course of the event, starting from a different point in the building each time, mapping a different course and telling a different tale in response to the received instructions. The score is applicable to any site or any building, but is also specific in the spoken responses and movements it generates; ‘threaded insert’ could be anywhere, but when I am performing in the Athenaeum, the work will also bring attention to qualities and features of that particular space.

 

‘his voice’ at dataAche, DRHA 2017, Plymouth

On Tuesday September 12th I will present ‘his voice’ at dataAche, DRHA2017 at Plymouth University. dataAche is the 21st international conference on Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA). Happening over four days, the event will mix keynote papers, workshops, installations and performance.

‘his voice’ presents a live voicing of the results of orchestrated Twitter searches. It is an ongoing project that has a number of iterations and outcomes. A body of text, gathered via online searches for “his voice sounded like”, has been edited to develop two- or three-word phrases, which are then used to search Twitter. In the live event the search results are converted to audio using text-to-speech software. This audio is delivered to me via headphones, and I attempt to speak it. The results include URLs, hashtags and other coded elements that are common in tweets. The flow of information meets the limits of vocal ability and the spoken output may spill into stuttering, gaps and incoherence.

 

‘Voice Recognition: A Play’ at Listening to Literature, Exeter University, July 28th

I will present a version of ‘Voice Recognition: A Play’ at Listening to Literature: A One Day Symposium on Soundscapes, which will take place at The Queen’s Building, University of Exeter on Friday July 28th 2017.

Link for Registration via Eventbrite.

How do we hear literature, and how do we write about hearing? How is music represented in literature, or literature represented in music? This one day symposium aims to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to discuss cultural perceptions of literary soundscapes, the difficulty of capturing sound in text, and the way text is expressed in sound.

 

‘subject to gesture’ at Gramophone Ray Gun 6, Liverpool, April 27

I will present a new work, a collaboration with composer/performer Benjamin D. Duvall as part of Gramophone Ray Gun 6 at Everyman Bistro in Liverpool on Thursday April 27th. The event is organised by Mark Greenwood, and will also feature work from Patricia Farrell and from James Davies.

The collaboration, ‘subject to gesture’, combines live reading and manipulation of the voice feed via a mixer and two treated electric guitars, a drum and other objects. Dock Road Press will publish a pamphlet version of the text and a diagram of the audio set up.

The note to the text reads:

‘Subject to Gesture’ was written in part using found material from a number of sources and being open to the political and cultural mood of Spring 2017. It exists alongside a collaborative work for performance developed between writer Mark Leahy and composer/performer Benjamin D. Duvall. The pair were introduced by Mark Greenwood, who suggested that they might work together and offered them a slot in the Gramophone Ray Gun series at The Bistro, Liverpool Everyman. The live work was premiered at Gramophone Ray Gun, on Thursday 27th April 2017.

presentation at Beyond Words conference 2017

On March 15th I will present ‘after alert catchers: a report on an other (than) worded event’ at the Beyond Words conference 2017 at Plymouth University. The conference is the culmination of an AHRC funded research project that explored relations of arts to health and wellbeing.

My paper discusses the ‘alert catchers’ project by artists Gabby Hoad, Susie David and Megan Calver at Dawlish Warren Nature Reserve in 2016. I make connections between the artists’ practices and questions of networks, of scoring, and of naming. References are made to work by Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett and Kathleen Stewart.

www.susiedavid.info

www.megancalver.com

www.gabriellehoad.co.uk