Description
worm divination (segmented realities) 2020 is a sonic composition created by Frances Barrett, Brian Fuata and Hayley Forward. Drawing on the various modalities of each artist – performance art, poetry and improvisation, dramaturgy and sound design – the composition is based on a series of modulated vocal performances sequenced in segments. The compositional structure replicates the segmented body of a worm, beginning in the mouth moving through to the anus. Driven by a ‘blind worm hunger’ – a phrase dug out of William Burrough’s Queer (1985) – this invertebrate sentience salivates the decomposition of language into sonic visceral force. At different points throughout the making of the work, each artist took turns to inhabit the role of the worm. As such, the worm can be seen to represent the artists’ conceptual approaches to their mode of collaboration. In a process akin to composting, the artist-worm’s role was to ingest the raw material of text, sound, movement and score, and process it through performance, improvisation and listening – foregrounding the body as a site of knowledge, intimacy and experimentation. The worm then transformed this raw material into compost: collapsing any distinctions between the body and artistic process. This sonic work is also deeply influenced by a range of external literary and artistic sources – including twentieth century American authors William Burroughs and Kathy Acker, avant-garde French theatre director and dramaturge Antonin Artaud, and the pioneers of industrial music, Throbbing Gristle. worm divination (segmented realities) can therefore also been seen to have digested these influences in the work’s representation of the queer body, operating beyond the image, beyond the optic, but rather as intensity, force and duration. Developed as an immersive sound experience responding specifically to the unique architecture of ACCA’s gallery spaces, worm divination (segmented realities) is mixed on the IOSONO 3D spatial audio rendering system and presented through a Yamaha loudspeaker system. - Australian Centre for Contemporary Art