Voice and Body in the Electroacoustic Space

Voice and Body in the Electroacoustic Space

A workshop / laboratory conducted by:

Manuela Barile (IT)

(vocal and body performance)

(microphones and electronic devices)

INTRODUCTION

Space is an indefinite and uncircumscribed extension with an unlimited capacity to contain bodies. The place is a portion of occupied space or that it’s possible to occupy physically or ideally.

The space is the abstract; the place is the concrete. The space is freedom; the place is safety. The place is memory, feeling, and thought. Our life cannot be told and represented without any reference to places. The place is a fabric weaved by relationships and experiences. For this reason, we hate and love places, while spaces are simply measured.

The archetype of the place is the bringing together while the archetype of the space is the interval, that is, the separation, the limit, the boundary and therefore the conflicts.

In which ways we think and feel a place and a space? What influences this process? In which ways is it possible to make a space become a place and a place to become a space? In which ways time and sound enter in this process and in which ways they influence us?

OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this intensive laboratory is to develop the necessary skills for a collaborative and multidisciplinary performance, through theoretical research and practical work, in which the use of voice, body, the acoustical and physical space and of sensorial amplification techniques intersect and concur to a contemporary artistic practice enriched in its expressive possibilities.

The laboratory offers an introduction to:

The voice in multidisciplinary performance and experimental music (theory)
The perception and control processes of the body, sound and space;
Listening: the experience of space through a careful and guided listening;
The relationship between space, time and body;
Expression and communication mechanisms of the inner sensibility;
Methodologies for organizing the materials that define a multidisciplinary performance;
Microphones for capturing and amplifying several bodily and spatial realities.

TARGET GROUP

Any person interested in the experimental and multidisciplinary artistic practice (performers, dancers, musicians, singers, etc.).

STRUCTURE

1st phase: the voice and body expression

Body expression: the body posture, walking, work on each part of the body.
The language sounds: sound, silence, breathing, voice, sound objects and their listening, movement with objects.
Experimental vocal techniques and the free improvisation.
The collective work: work in pairs and in groups, contact and dialogue.

2nd phase: body and space sensorial amplification

Space: different typologies of spaces, listening to the space, indoors and outdoors spaces, the contrasts, the movement in the space, the point, the line, and the circle.
The human body and its possibilities of amplified expression.
The possibilities of sensorial amplification and its applications in experimental artistic contexts.
The diversity of microphones: piezo-electric microphones (to capture the vibrations on the surface of objects), hydrophone (to capture underwater sounds), larynxophone (to capture vibrations of the larynx and to produce “silent speech”), amplified stethoscope (to capture the sounds produced inside the human body), etc.
Introduction to the technical mechanisms for using some microphones. Practical examples.

3rd Phase: Development of an artistic project

The participants will develop, at the last day of the laboratory, a brief collaborative artistic project using the various notions and techniques learned in the previous modules. The project can be publicly presented and, after its ending, a collective reflection session will take place where the results of the workshop and the final project will be analyzed by all the participants and the possibilities for further exploration of the concepts will be discussed.

DURATION AND LOCATIONS

Depending on the hosting venue’s preference, the workshop can last from 2 days (5 hours per day) to 4 days (4 hours per day), in dates and places to be announced.

REQUIREMENTS

It is recommended that those participants who use some kind of sound processing software (Cubase, Appleton Live, Pure Data, Supercollider, MAX/MSP, lloopp etc.) bring their laptops. The participants may also bring their video camera and other objects and materials that could be useful for the workshop and final presentation.

APPLICATIONS

Please send an e-mail message to info[at]binauralmedia.org, referring your name, address, age, e-mail address, URL, short biography and the reason for applying to this workshop.

The laboratories will be organized as a function of the number of applications received from the same geographical region.

Photos from three previous workshops:

MUSAC – Contemporary Art Museum of León (Spain)