Topographies of Hearing: THE GRADUAL TONGUE

Through their collaborations, Audrey Chen and Hugo Esquinca simultaneously explore the dynamics between a sonorous body, the processing interaction of a system that responds directly to the particularities of its spectra and the relation these two have with a defined space. “YOUR MOUTH LIMB DISMEMBERED, THE GRADUAL TONGUE DISSECTED”, is presented within the framework of “Topographies of Hearing” at MaerzMusik 2024, as a weeklong intervention across four locales, pushing the physical limits of the hyperextended voice through unstable arrangements for signal processing. Working with the phenomena of phantom limb, oral and auditory perceptions, the voice-process interplay is used as a means to reveal the depth and explosive capabilities of the vocal apparatus, creating residual sensations dispersed through the physical spaces, invoking the artifact of memory inherited into musculature.

“Topographies of Hearing” is a series of sound installations, concerts and durational compositions commissioned by MaerzMusik that pose questions about immersive listening encounters and the ways they are experienced beyond concert halls and performance spaces. The festival has invited Audrey Chen, Hugo Esquinca, Christina Kubisch, Jessica Ekomane and Miya Masaoka to create site-specific sound art in the MaerzMusik Library at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, at the Akademie der Künste, at SAVVY Contemporary and at other locations in Berlin. These works deal with acoustic images and scenographies of the ear, examining the relationship between audience and environment. Through live concerts and performances that happen either spontaneously or at fixed times throughout the festival, they accompany MaerzMusik as immersive spaces of listening as well as collective experiences that challenge the politics of listening, opposing Western contexts of concert halls and sterile exhibition spaces. Physiological constraints – seated, frontal, contorted – are transformed into new realms of composing and performing music and sound. How can we make our movements resonate? How does the space shape our sound? What sonic imprint do our – human – bodies leave behind? And what can the sounds that came before us tell us about our past as well as choreograph our today and tomorrow?