On Screen: The yellow thread hangs from the ewe.
To ask me to unleash my beast is to request of me to unlearn and disrobe.
To skirt around the outskirts of sound, not distressed but disquiet. To be receiver.
To take inventory.
Did you hear the animal in pain? Crying for their mother?
The mock and the mimic stand in the centre of the room, facing each other.
With extended arms and open throats
Shaking at each other. Panting.
A croak, and a forward step.
A question : What is stuck in the throat?
Another question: how does a rolling sphere sound like the ocean?
Why do so many sounds sound like the sea?
An interruption in the form of a ringing telephone, the beginning of another impossible
dialogue, a passing back and forth, a hot potato.
‘I can’t see’ says the child,
‘Hey kid, this is the sight of sound.’
(A whistle) (machine static) (skirl) (warble)
(A laugh)(a bark)(a barking laugh)
(A suck) (a tut)
(A flapping of something organic)
(something internal) (a tongue)
Levitating:
the sound ascending
Its makers are traveling up the staircase.
Its making us travel up the staircase.
L’esprit d’escalier
Feels like: A game
Feels like: A bear hunt
A hunt sound-tracked by persistent percussion,
the battlefield drum.
And us: a congregation composed,
Syncopated spectators.
(A chime) (a ring) (a din)
(And then) (nothing)
Relief.
Sometimes making noise is harder than making music.
The kid chimes in again.
‘Mama’ He delivers a crisp clear quaver.
Aside: ‘What is it?’
I see this interaction. It is brief but I see it and I think about when sound is verboten and when it is encouraged and when it is impulsive and when it is all of these things at once. I think about sound like instant. I feel about sound like instant.
What is it? Another sound pulls me back.
A rattling, like stones or bones:
A sonic solidity.
Sound moves through bodies, bodies that are:
(Worrying) (sanding)
(Agitating) (soldering)
In front of me.
In front of witnesses.
This sonic construction site:
Whistle while you work.
Having worn your duty of silent spectator, felt its collar digging into your neck, closing up your throat now we invite you to Disrobe. Disrobe. Disrobe: This cacophony is communal.
My hand drops pen, extends, receives a bronze bell. The crazy song started, everyone in rebel chorus - alarms with no fear - I passed the bell to the person behind me, smiled at the face of resistance and reached for the pen again.
What sound stands out?
Will someone answer the door?
Finale:
the uniform clap
the thank you gesture
the blood returned.
The sound’s strange exit and the ear’s faint ring.
A response to the performance and screening event Chimera: Levitating Tongues by composers Ceylan Hay and Shiori Usui. Part of the series of events accompanying Nashashibi/Skaer's exhibition Chimera at Cooper Gallery, 30 September – 10 December 2022.
Follow @cherylmcgregorwriter on Instagram for more writing.
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