This work takes as its starting point, the concept of a ‘speech act’ – an utterance expressed by an individual, that not only presents information but performs an action as well. Requests, pleas, warnings, invitations, promises, apologies, predictions, orders, complaints and refusals are all examples of speech acts. This form of speech links very closely the speaker with their own individual desire.
Presented as a notated score and vocal performance, Speech Acts takes inspiration from my child’s vocal experimentations in her journey towards speech, and extends upon my recent work thinking about what ‘speech’ means. As a new parent witnessing the development of language in my child, I have been taught, or perhaps reminded, that the voice can do many expressive things that are swiftly discarded as language develops. That language develops as a child’s capacity to desire emerges. That in the precious months before speech conquers the mind, a world of uncoded desire and non-language-based utterance briefly flourishes. In this (child’s) world, relations to animals, objects and humans are unabridged, and the energies of listening and uttering have a prismatic quality; desire arises relatively unrepressed, uncoded by social norms, and this is represented in the sounds of the fledgling voice.
Is it possible through experimental listening and composition, to find ways for a new form of speech to emerge, one that shifts the capacities of our desires? What kind of power could be held in such an act? What might this do for and to a listener, and how might they be compelled to respond, either instantaneously, or over time?
Developed with support from Chamber Made through the Orange House Residency.