Inscriptions (April 2011)
performance installation
Inscriptions is a sonic exploration of how memory can inscribe itself physically, and uses Edward Lucie-Smith's collection of poems of the same name. The poems were originally written for a portfolio of prints by the Mexican artist Feliciano Bejar. Through the technique of 'blind printing', designs were impressed (inscribed) into soft white paper. The text explores the many ways in which experience is physically inscribed into life, and how this is not always obviously perceived. A gravestone, a public toilet, a tattoo, a patch of dead grass underneath a stone all have their stories to tell; they all have their memories.

Through the performance installation, the idea of inscribing sounds into the performance space is explored. Each poem is allocated a specific point in the performance space where the performers move to to recite a specific poem. Once they have recited the poem, they then move onto the next poem that occupies a different area of the performance space. The performers enter the performance space one after another. By spatialising the performers, the audience is invited to move around the performance space where they will be are able to focus on each different fragments of the poems. However, the poems interact with each other by being thrown around the room through the diffusion system. They then impress their own acoustic inscriptions into the performance space. At first the panning of each poem remains localised; as the piece progresses each poem moves around more and more, staining the acoustic space. The process reverses, and the spatialisation of each poem becomes localised again until the words disappear. Première: Seán Clancy, Kathryn Harris,Theodor Valentin Iliescu, Andrew Ingamells, Genevieve Murphy and Catrin Owen, 8th April 2011, Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire.