Silence it is
Performance
first performed on June 4, 2011 preluding the show Mute Motives
at Semantics Gallery, Cincinnati, USA
Silence It Is is a performance interested in the deconstruction of silence as form. The utterance of any sound breaks silence and defines it as a negative space in relation to the uttering, language. The utterance of the message “silence it is” increases the relation with that negative space by emphasizing it on a semiotic level. Eight performers were invited to take place as part of a polyphonic performance.
In the score composed by Jennifer Jollie, each performer was assigned an utterance-code that responds to two parameters: one of the eight “utterance intensities” (rustle, mumble, murmur, whisper, utter, scold, yell, shout) and a specific pitch-duration. The “stability” of the score/code depends highly on each performer’s capacity to keep the integrity of their cues from the overlaying of other performers cues. This emphasizes the idea of language reduction at the same time it produces an accumulation of sound. The abstraction of language becomes somehow parallel to the negative space that silence creates in relation to noise.
The documentation of the performance was recently published on Emergency Index 11 by Ugly Duckling Press
