BodyMouth

Kat Mustatea

Artwork Description:

BodyMouth, a novel sound-movement instrument that turns the body into an organ for speech via body-worn sensors and real-time speech synthesis software. It poses a striking form of body augmentation, in which the musculature of the mouth is quite literally superimposed on that of the body, resulting in synthetic speech that is “meaty” and humanlike. You already have a mouth—why not just speak? In thinking through why it was important to build this tool, I continue to reflect on the bleak history of totalitarian rule in East Europe and the extent to which underground, alternate modes of speech constitute an urgent form of survival and resistance. My interest in developing BodyMouth is part of a larger investigation into alternate forms of speech and voicing - to study ways of speech being subversive, critical, and ‘outsider’ to dominant power structures. It informs a set of strategies I am developing for creating voices for the voiceless, inspired by 'ielele,' female forest creatures in Romanian folklore whose voices would lead men astray—whoever heard their songs would become instantly mute. The uniqueness of the project is both in its mesmerizing technical achievement—as the audience watches dancers literally 'speak' with their bodies—and also the neurological implications of being able to produce speech in this surprising way, of listening to the the body in order to make language. Used in performance, effect of the instrument is highly emotional and gets under your skin, likely because of the emotional connection to our own voices.