Voice paradigms
The situation of vocal art practices within Western music cultures today effectively involves four voice paradigms: the singing voice, the speaking voice, the extended voice either expanded through the application of so-called extended vocal techniques or through technological means and, finally, the acousmatic or disembodied voice.
Aims
The aim of this artistic research project is to find strategies to extend the voice paradigms by elaborating on both the vocal and the oral sphere. The multivocal voice is an aesthetic concept that fosters an integrative approach to vocal performance practices rather than excluding one or the other from the scope of the above mentioned voice categories. At the same time, the performer is to be stimulated by the negative affordance of ‘not repeating the past’. The notion of multivocality therefore indicates various modes of new kinds of virtuosity, all of which are informed by an artistic knowledge that is multi-faceted regarding its methods, be it experimental or experiential, technical or technological, improvisational or compositional. The multivocal practitioner does not only expand the discipline of vocal arts as such, but also goes beyond that by integrating and merging with other forms of expressions including sound art and bodily practices.
For both the vocal performer and the composer, the main challenges concern how to implement these attempts within the actual artistic practice and, along the way, how to unveil the findings and to convey prerequisites and principles by taking into account the underlying philosophical and socio-cultural implications. The focus of the project is research in and through the arts and its related practices. Under the umbrella of the voice it combines a variety of disciplines touching upon the exploration of vocal and oral art practices, the philosophical discourse on the voice as well research in design with regard to the development and the exploration of applying live electronics, i.e. the strophonion, all of which are driven by the question of how to create a coherent and compelling vocal art performance today.
