Resonant Tails had its roots in the Your Vivacious Voice project. I was asked to improvise with children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD) by an artist who experienced the performance Uluzuzulalia. From this initial improvisatory experience, a method, a 'machine' that I call a mobile digital 'theatre of the voice',  specifically attuned to children with PMLD, all emerged. 

Our question was: how best can we entice children with PMLD to create vocal art, developing and refining their own unique vocal virtuosities; and through so doing, to enjoy and to both celebrate, and hear, feel and see celebrated,  the unsual, idiosyncratic nature of their wonderfully, incredibly, unique voicings and voices? 

The project has had unusual impact. Phase 1 and 2 have taken place; phase 3 has been funded but not yet begun. 

Start by reading this book chapter 

Bonenfant, Y. in Kapadocha, C. [ed.]  (2020). Somatic Voices in Performance Research and Beyond. New York: Routledge, pp. 186-197 (Chapter 14) 

Remember, if you click on pdfs, videos or photos in this exhibition, they will enlarge and be readable. 

1

After the first sessions of improvisation, we designed the object's exterior, interior and its coding. See evaluation at bottom for explanations. Resonant Tails is designed to be visually interesting, and to evoke worlds of mystery and creativity. However, it is also designed to be used from the floor, a chair or a stretcher; to be reachable from all angles; to be indestructible; and to work inside PMLD schools. 

Excerpt from design process document; by Julien Masson. 

Visuals of the aesthetic results of the construction process. 

Slideshow - design and build process. 

The evaluation recounts our analysis of what had to be done to make the project work best. Trailer of Rosewood work to the right. 

2

Our learning from Phase 1 motivated us to make more Resonant Tailses and to develop a proper in-school training programme for the teachers. Youth Music, Postcode Community Trust and four new schools themselves supported this next phase. 

Above, live video paper with voice over from Re-Sound: Media Art Histories 2019 conference, Aalborg, Denmark, articulating our learning from that year. 

For the moment, please see www.tractandtouch.com/portfolio/resonant-tails for basic info

Left: the artists working at one of the schools, short sampler. (Sound files follow later). 

New explanatory trailer: Resonant Tails

Critical - staff 'how to' training video 

FROM 

THEIR 

THEATRES 

OF 

SOUND,

TOUCH

AND LIGHT

WHAT WE LEARNED. 

WHAT WE'LL DO NEXT

EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT

Above, our evaluation. 

Below, our independent evaluator's report. 

The Resonant Tails values framework accompanied by its unique session evaluation document 

We applied for, and received, GBP 150K to spread to four more schools to bring our total to 7, to keep learning, to keep improving, in Feb 2021. We will not be able to accept the grant due to Covid-19 but will be working with Youth Music to continue our programme with new partnerships from autumn 2022.