Stoma

Stoma was exhibited at the University of Brighton's Gallery (2007) and at the Athens Video Art Festival (2008).

Stoma is an interactive installation inspired by Beckett's theatrical monologue entitled Not I. A short excerpt of the text is used as the canvas on which a series of pre-recorded interpretations of it builds up. The visitor is invited to perform in this voicescape by firstly recording his or her voice reading the same text for 40 seconds and then by listening to it for the next 6 minutes as it overlaps way with the disembodied voices inside Stoma. He/She is expected to provide a focused listening to the composition in order to fully participate in the performance.

The concept behind this project is supported by two parameters that interconnect. First, it is the treatment of a theatrical text as a musical one in order to give to it a new angle of interpretation and a new edge. Secondly, it is achieved by the use of the human voice. The performer provides his/her personal version of the text and witnesses a process of voice recognition and exploration within a predefined soundscape.

The listener will become aware of his/her voice subtly changing through a series of automated filter settings and hopefully recognise the musicality of its resonant frequencies. Its fusion with the unknown voices will create a supportive environment where it will become more apparent how musical, present and yet absent it can be. It is indeed an interesting process to listen to these voices correlating and overlapping as it can lead to a diversity of realisations depending on the listener.

Stoma is therefore a process of decontextualisation for both the text and the voice itself. It simply suggests how one should listen to a voice by paying attention to details other than its content and context. It is an intimate moment of accepting or even re-evaluating one's own voice. Voice is the personal sound image of oneself and Stoma is an open channel to everyone who wants to explore this idea.