PROJECT:

The aim of the project is to develop a performative esthetic of the voice. We are working on the assumption that voice can be understood as a paradigm of the performative, since it encompasses various dimensions of the performative (including performance character and eventfulness, along with its iterative and media quality). Our approach is based on two key notions. Firstly, voice should not be seen solely as a vehicle or medium of language, but also as an event that generates specific realities and effects. Secondly, speech should be conceptualized as an act with inextricably linked active and passive components, including deliberately created and emergent consequences. The project focuses on vocal performances in various art forms and media from the 1960s to the present. However, it goes beyond theatrical works and performance art, video and installation art, radio plays and film, internet art and sound/radio art to include selected vocal phenomena from non-artistic daily life and popular culture.

In addition, the parameters of the project will be extended during the final phase to include complex acoustic situations. In such acoustic situations, voices, noises, mechanical sounds, musical tones and various other sounds are combined and presented as audible collage. This means the focus of the research project will now include clarification of the interaction between voice, music, sound and accompanying acoustic phenomena, illustrated by selected theater productions, performances and installations.

This project is divided into four sub-projects:

Sub-project 1: Voices as Paradigms of the Performative aims to develop an esthetic of voice and vocality, based on the assumption that neither a body nor a language exists before the actual articulation or embodiment of sound. Apart from developing a performative esthetic of the voice, this sub-project addresses the ethical dimensions of vocality. The focus in doing so lies on differentiation of the specific social gap between vocalization and hearing. What aspects of address, participation and involvement are triggered by novel forms of vocal communication? How can the role and activity of recipients of an acoustic situation be appropriately described? Should the definition of performance (not only) of voices be fundamentally re-examined and revised, where destructive and violent dimensions are involved? How is the tension between active and passive involvement, and thus the inability to exert complete control over performative effects, reflected in both artistic and non-artistic acoustic situations?

Sub-project 2 addresses the relationship between Voice, Acoustics and Violence. It therefore focuses on vocal or acoustic dimensions which could be described as destructive, e.g. aspects of overwhelming, disturbing/destroying and injuring, as well as issues of power, authority and powerlessness. The primary focus is on various vocal articulations and acoustic phenomena and practices associated with the act of inflicting injury and violence. This includes such phenomena as hate-induced rage, a condescending tone, extremely loud music or noise, certain forms of silence and also hearing (listening in, not listening, selective hearing or ignoring).

How can more definitive distinctions be made between notions of violence, power, injury and destruction? What do vocal, acoustic, spoken and other forms of expressed violence have in common, and what distinguishes them from one another? What is the purpose of expressing destruction through vocal-acoustic acts, and to what extent does it imply productivity? How do theater productions and other art forms deal with the phenomena of vocal-acoustic violence and injury?

Sub-project 3, Technical Rendition of the Voice in Theater, Radio and Film is designed to address the various dimensions of voice, methods of rendition and ways in which they work. The focus, in view of the broad field of technically rendered voice phenomena, will be on the dimensions of corporeality and incorporeality of voice. Concepts of esthetic media, phenomenology, theater and cultural studies will be used to develop an appropriate vocabulary for analyzing the impact of these specific voices.

What are the consequences on the audience, for instance, of the theater technique of separating a visibly discernible body from an audibly perceived voice? What effect does the use of different voices in a radio play have on the acoustic scene? What dimensions of corporeality are open to the listener in such cases? How does film deal with the (initially) visual absence of a speaker when voices are heard off screen? What kind of game is being played with presence and absence in such cases? What role does the voice off-screen have beyond that of the authorial narrator?

Sub-project 4, Auditory Awareness: Voice – Music – Sound is based on the assumption that the phenomenon of awareness is particularly capable of illustrating the exchange and the tension between voice, music and sound, as well as the interplay of auditory and other sensory perceptions. The characteristic oscillation that is so typical of awareness, between the tendency to actively pay attention and be passively drawn to something, seems particularly pertinent to performance theories about the cultural dynamics of speaking and listening.

Are there any underlying structures or inherent rules of auditory awareness, that can be distinguished by, for instance, extending gestalt theory concepts and phenomenological considerations? How can the relationship between auditory awareness and other sensory perceptions be described? By means of which acoustic elements and methods is the attempt made to draw the attention of the audience? What are the consequences in terms of artistic reception, when in productions like Falk Richter's staging of Chekhov's The Three Sisters or in To you, the birdie by the Wooster Group, voice is overlaid with conflicting sound effects, and there is danger of it being drowned out by cacophonies of sound, or when it has to compete with noise, loud musical interludes and other forms of audible interference?

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