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Vococentric. (Portfolio of Research: Dancing on the Stairs; Distance and Proximity; Eloquent Voice) Various Venues: Cairo (2008); Illinois (2011); Brussells (2013) : Portfolio of Sound Art research and practice

From 2008 Irvine undertook extended research into the human voice. Using sound art practice as central methodology, the research resulted in a body of work disseminated through international exhibitions, performances and online.

The research was based on the premise that voice is a threshold phenomenon, oscillating between the bodily interior and exterior, spanning the emotional and the linguistic and extending from the individual to the social. Through a series of works the research process isolated various features of voice to further elucidate their functions.

Through Sound Constructions an international exhibition at The Townhouse Gallery in Cairo, (7th Sep – 7th Oct 2008), Irvine’s installation piece Dancing on the Stairs explored voice as a vehicle for meaning and identity. Arranging and translating recorded interviews with an Egyptian expatriate in London. Subsequently, Distance and Proximity (Out of the Box Music Festival, Southern Illinois University, 2-9 April 2011) examined the spatial, locative and intersubjective functions of voice using an everyday family situation. Then Eloquent Voice (Tuned City: Brussels 27th – 30th June 2013) moved the focus to voice biometry as a way of measuring the emotional in voice and it’s use as a means for social control using voice analysis software.

The research revealed how voice communicates identity through language, accent and prosody and that the individual identity expressed is plural and mutable. In the familial setting, the locative voice and the connective musicality of the vocal interactions were made evident. The research also showed how our voices that have always been conduits for non-verbal information, are now becoming a non-consensual data set for analysis in various contexts.

Irvine’s research should be seen in the context of performative phenomena as a subject of cultural analysis and makes a valuable contribution to this interdisciplinary discourse by using artistic methodology.