Wednesday seminar: Ultrasounding Chamber Music

This seminar is part of the Wednesday seminar series this autumn, where we explore Ways of sharing. Here you can learn more about the series and discover upcoming seminars!

For this 30% seminar, I have developed a practice of vocal and acoustic ultrasounding, appropriating the medical technology of ultrasound. Working with the structure and precision of traditional audio description, I combine minimal language with evocative vocal composition, to investigate what it might mean to position audio description as a hypersubjective, sensory and embodied practice.

Audio description translates the visual world into spoken language, making the content accessible to “people who see blindly”. When audio description is integrated into a performance, it becomes part of the artwork for the whole audience to experience. I seek to deepen the process of integration further, by making description the main element – an artwork that describes itself.

I have worked with four performers to create a performance where two different chambers are described through a practice of ultrasounding. The first chamber is the dance studio where the seminar is hosted. The second chamber is a medical image of my collapsed lung. The performers follow a score of spatialised syllables that bounce between them to create imagery.  

The performance is created with the performers: Norea Humla, Salka Ardal Rosengren, Lisen Ellard and Anna Fitoussi

Main Supervisor: Martin Sonderkamp
Supervisor: Sindri Runudde

Schedule

13:00-13:05 Welcome by Martin Sonderkamp
13:10-13:20 Introduction by Louise Ahl
13:20-13:45 Performance of Burr is oh flesh (working title)
13:45-13:55 Break
13:55-14:25 Response by discussant Amelia Lander-Cavallo
14:25-14:40 Break
14:40-15:30 Discussion Louise Ahl and Amelia Lander-Cavallo
15:30-16:00 Questions from audience

Discussant Amelia Lander-Cavallo is a blind and neurodivergent artist, academic, facilitator and theatre practitioner and a co-founder of Quiplash CIC. Amelia moved to the UK from New Mexico, USA in 2006 and has worked for around 20 years in the field of performance and audio description (AD), contributing to research and writing, supporting artists and companies to find exciting and creative ways to utilise this access tool. They have their own methodology ‘Queer AD’ which is used by audio describers in projects and theatres across the UK and abroad.

Image description: To the left is a photo of a dark performance space with some chairs scattered on the black floor. A hazy white pillar of light shines down from above. To the right is an x-ray image of Louise Ahl’s torso. The x-ray has a translucent greyscale glow. Bones, tissues and organs are layered in thin white veils against a black background. At the front of the chest is a rectangular shape, which is a chest drain. The two lung cavities are dark with translucent ribs across. One arm is reaching up, the other is bent at the elbow as the newly inserted chest drain is restricting movement.