A three part; sound- text manifesto, turned into video performance, combining; Words, sounds, movement and image; intermediating to create a political impact through the power of the performer. (Politix Of Sound is one part of a digital –vocal- video opera, by Anat Ben-David.)

Politics of sound (the leading text of the piece) was written as a response to Jacques Attali’s – “NOISE: The Political Economy of music” (1977), using the ‘manifesto sound'. Attali’s analysis of society – “by its sounds” (p3), his view that: “Music is a way of perceiving the world” and his economic analysis of noise as “the source of purpose and power” (p6: “More than colors and forms, it is sounds and their arrangements that fashion societies. With music is born power and its opposite: subversion” (Attali, p6)

 

'Words for opera’: Words form the basis of my activity and guide the writing of an opera; where sounds, music, visuals and actions; follow the functionality of the physical text – its utterance. I write intuitively, using collage writing - a technique often related to writing of lyrics and some forms of poetry that are sound led- rhythm or meter. I edit that text and learn it by- heart, make it audible and work until its meaning becomes secondary to their sound, I then perform the text.

Utterance of text, using vocal- the voice, presents a complex dynamics, originating out of a relationship formed between word, sound and origin of utterance - the subject. Richard Kostelanetz defines it in his “Text-Sound-Art a survey” as the intemedium; “located between language arts and musical arts” Josef Sprinzak argues that Text-sound art works, are characterized by a back and forth movement between speech as “voice”, that is, as a medium of expression and communication, and speech as “sound”, that is, as an independent object which is “not a medium”, SprinZak explains, if I understand correctly, that ‘speech as sound’ is not a medium, but rather, intermedium, because text and sound are two separate mediums that work in relation to one another and this interaction is what creates meaning in performance.

In my opinion, the importance of defining what is text-sound, lies in comprehending the potential of the genre as intemedium, which remains as a tool that expands into other dimensions and manifest in other different media collision. For me, Intermedium produces meaning and potential power for the person performing that activity- the performer- artist- as they are responsible of delivering of new meaning.

The piece is commissioned by SPOR in connection to 'Call for Proposals 2012'.