Beyond the Silence is a series of four videos done in collaboration with author Dr. Katharina Donn. Katharina presented this project at London Conference in Critical Thought at Westminster University conference in 2018.
More about the project below.
“How can we address the silence that is haunting us from within? Being vulnerable in a vulnerable world has led us on a search for a new language. One that enables us to become responsive. One that does not pay credence to the hierarchies of syntax, a way of drawing that transcends the bounds of the figurative. One that entwines words with sound, marks, and bodily movement.
Beyond the Silence is an encounter between trauma theory, literature and performative drawing, moving thought to the rhythm of breath, body and charcoal dust. This series of experiments relies on the soundscapes of writing and mark-making as well as their visual traces, inviting participants into an immersive environment around a bespoke drawing table.”
Video 1: Generative Frictions
Does language silence memory? Does thought entail forgetting? Does the body keep the score? The words of trauma theorists engulf the performer in a loop of spoken repetition. Yet simultaneously her hands write different words in different languages. In the claustrophobic space of repetition, new meaning emerges, engendering precarious writings.
Video 2: Elasticity and Restraint
Does silence paralyze? Does paralysis silence? Straining against the constraints on her body, the performer begins to lose control of her writing. The bands on her wrists pull back her hands, the traces of letters turning into abstract patterns, scratched and torn. Beyond language, movement. Beyond words, lines and traces.
Video 3: Disruptive Collaboration
How can conflict create new meaning, new patterns and new languages? Experimenting with mutual disruption as a method to create new modes of drawing, writing, and thinking, the performers work with and against each other in a confined space. The rhythmic marks tear through the writing, opening it up to new dimensions of sound, of movement, of meaning.
Video 4: Patterning Thought
How can drawing become a new way of thinking? Performers disrupt projections of their own work in trauma theory, their charcoal patterns looking for different connections. As the projections change, concepts become entwined in unforeseen pattern: some violently crossed out and some tenderly linked or carefully highlighted. Conceptual thought becomes a matter of pattern creation, of movement, of affect.