Output details

Performative, multimedia artist's book.

Soie soyeuse (Silky Silk), ISBN 2-903911-91-1

Bi-lingual; English and French

Soie Soyeuse

This project aimed to develop documentation strategies for intimate extended voice performance because ways of documenting extended voice that capture its tactile qualities, and thus that move beyond traditional notions of writing vocal performance, have been little explored. The project expands the existing performance studies tradition writing “of” and “about” live performance into the sonic, textile and tactile realms. The output itself *is* a performative book, and is framed as a performance submission.

We did this by:

• Assembling a creative team, headed by Yvon Bonenfant, which came together to translate their interpretations of the tactile qualities of the performance Soie Soyeuse into hand-made, textile art pages,

• Working with a publisher to develop the overall book design, in order to make the book a truly multi-sensory experience,

• Working with the thematic content of the original performance and thereby working in silk,

• Developing a CD, composed and performed by Bonenfant, that re-embodies and re-interprets the sonic content of the performance and which is designed to be listened to alongside the “reading” (touching) of the textile pages, integrated into the book.

The project was supported by the AHRC as a step toward the development of other methodologies for writing the ineffable in performance.

The result opens a debate about writing sound-touch; proposes alternative methods for the documentation of “somatic” performance through concrete example; and through so doing, proposes an artistic-academic approach to a new model or writing tactile intention in, and tactile experience of, intermedial performance.

The work was formally published by Editions Talmart in a hand-made limited edition of 40, sold to libraries and individuals, exhibited, deposited in the National Library of France, and donated to key artist book collections; a paper and participatory workshop were developed about the work for the IFTR 2010 Performance as Research Working Group.