Coaching mit Jasmin 22.07./ 23.07.
Tasks:

•  Collective writing
• short presentations (videos, sound, choreography, try outs etc. etc.) based onwords/phrases/sentences from the collective writing:

  BARKING IN LETTERS:
  We discuss about the connection between eloquence and correct usage of language, which gets undermined by the speaker in this video

  OPEN MOUTH
  Antonia on stage, disinfecting her hands, opening her mouth, putting her whole fist into the opening. Second try – “develop what you just did”: This time the emptiness of the mouth is filled with the microphone.

  I HAVE TO WAIT FOR MY TRANSFORMATION TO COME
  A is reading a text she wrote a while ago in which she describes the odds when thinking of puberty. She is reading it standing on the side. Yasmin asks her to repeat it with the microphone, whispering. In the first version A as a performer is much more present even though she is just standing on the side, while in the second version the text comes to the fore even though A is positioned much more centered on stage. → weird paradox of performing

  BLIND’S HANDWRITING
  Lo is whispering a text into Le’s ears. With closed eyes Le is typing the words into the computer while the screen is projected onto the wall, visible for the audience.
  → muscle memory knows how to find the letters on the keyboard even though, if asked, no one of us could say where the “k” e.g. is located
  → how autocorrect is part of the writing process – which fights can happen with autocorrect, when the algorithm insists the word does not exist etc. – fighting with machines over language…

  LANGUAGE AS AN ARMY
  graphics projected on the wall. the ever same sentence “My head speaks a language I don’t understand” gets repeated in different variations. Letters become structure/image etc.
  → repetition, image, patterns, words get cavern out by their reiteration

  POLICE
  Musikvideo von POLIÇA – Wedding
  usage of letters as titles, usage of subtitles who make it possible to let song and situation/dialogue overlap, interspecies dialogues between puppets and humans, translating a harsh topic into the words/world of children

→ discussion about the position of the white band, “educating” black children? who is the addressed people, who is talking from what position to whom? who should adress whom (police, children etc.)

WRITING RIGHT TO LEFT
Le writes:
“Die Sprache, die ich beobachte, bedeutet meinen Augen; lauft rückwärts. Hebräisch bürstet meine gewohnte Leserichtung gegen den Strich. Ich lerne eine Sprache, die sich auf mich zu schreibt. Sie kommt mir entgegen, ich mag das an ihr. Alle anderen Sprachen, die ich spreche, entfliehen mir. Ich renne ihnen um Atem ringend hinterher. Das Hebräische hat mich schon erwartet. Es schenkt mir nicht nur diesen Richtungswechsel des Schreibens, das für mich ein Zurückschreiben, oder Entgegnen ist, sondern eine weitaus interessanteren, weil verborgenen, nämlich semantischen Richtungswechsel. Der Besitz wird im deutschen, englischen, französischen, schwedischen, in allen Sprachen, die ich sonst kenne, durch ein Subjekt, das ein Verb (zB „haben“ „have“ „avoir“ „har“) beugt, mit dem es das Objekt umklammert. Auch hier kehrt das Hebräische meine gewohnte Struktur um: „es gibt“ + Objekt + Subjekt. Das Objekt kommt auf das Subjekt zu. Einmal saßen wir im Kino und warteten auf den Film und sprachen so über dies und das. Mein Freund, den ich damals noch nicht lange kannte, machte seinerseits einen Witz darüber,dass er die App sowieso nicht bedienen könne, weil er immer automatisch in die entgegengesetzte Richtung swipen würde. Ich schenkte ihm daraufhin ein Bild, das ich als Kind gemalt und kürzlich aus einer riesigen blauen Mappe gefischt hatte, in der die ganzen vergessenen Bilder meiner Kindheit über zwei Jahrzehnte lang gekauert hatten, als seien sie von einem Walfisch verschluckt worden. Als ich die Mappe fand, spuckte sie eine halbe Sintflut von Monstern, Tieren, Familienmitgliedern, Monarchen und Piraten aus. Das Bild das ich A. schenkte, zeigt ein Paar, das einander zugewandt an den beiden Seiten des Papiers steht und sich seine gegenseitige Liebe bezeugt. Die Liebende, deren Zöpfe wild um ihren Kopf fliegen, spricht von der linken Bildseite, eingerahmt von einer Sprechblase,
die Buchstaben: „Ich liebe dich“ und der Geliebte, der ihr gegenübersteht, entgegnet als Liebender: „Ich liebe dich“. Seine Schrift ist spiegelverkehrt: Ich frage mich, ob ich den Ruf des Liebenden bewusst oder unbewusst in Spiegelschrift geschrieben habe.”

ROOM ANSWERS BACK
Le writes:
“Often we don’t seem to listen to what the room says, but subconsciously we respond to it. The color of the lights, the hidden smells, the temperature, the vague but present atmosphere, tensions, doors, lamps, the lightnings that send their stroboscopic messages which I still can’t read through the window all of them speak to me in electric tongues. its up to me to listen, but it is not up to me to decide to respond”
While Le is reading, the lights of the room react and transform her words into colors, rhythms etc. (by the rules Y programmed into them)

IF ORIGIN WAS SACRED WHY WOULD WE MOVE ON FROM THERE? Le writes:

“Karl Kraus wrote „Der Ursprung ist das Ziel“ and so did Benjamin when he quoted him And thinking time as circuit rather than a line is something that I can connect to And of course we imagine the skies as a dome-shaped, womb-shaped thing”

CONNOTATION
Y shows an image: The pedestal of a menora turns into a swastika. Underneath some hebrew writing – a caricature from a israeli newspaper 
→ discussion about symbols: How to translate symbols or is it not possible at all beccause symbols work on specific cultural codes and meanings even more than words and language → “Bildsprache” → what does a swastika mean in a german context, in a israeli context or in a british or ancient greek or indian context? How to translate the codes of cultural understanding?

EEL TRANSFORMATION
Y tattoos a long line on an orange. The sound of the tattoo machine gets amplified by the contact mics connected to the machine

•  continuing with Trans-lational Karaoke: What shifts in the power structure are happening when the audience does not know the language of the song?
  If the audience knows the language of the song and the language in which it get translated, the audience automatically turns into some kind of “police”, checking the correctness/preciseness of the translator, watching mistakes etc.
  If one of those languages are unfamiliar for the audience (e.g. song in Farsi, translated into english) the audience has to trust the translator, since they are their only chance to understand the song. How can we use those power shifts and dependencies between staged situation and audience further?
• various discussions…. about what language is and what it could be-> how to translate it for everybody to hear/feel/understand – inclusive language: what does this mean? how can we use this thinking in our research? … ….
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  PROGRAMMING THE LIGHTS VIA TOUCHDESIGNER, SO THEY TRANSLATE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN SPACE INTO THE LANGUAGE THE LIGHTS HAVE ON HAND

  The led light installation in the room is based on the analysis of elements that sound we produce consist of. The power/volume and the panning of the light fixtures is based on the volume each speaker in the 4 point system receives The rgb Part of the led fixtures is based on the frequencies the sounds we make supply, where higher frequencies will be red, mid will be green, and low will be blue. In addition to it when we reach really high frequencies the fixtures are receiving lagged strobe effect→ Next step: how to use the language now given to the lights in a performative way? e.g. different animal sounds get imitated/translated by the lights, get transformed into light, how are the lights reacting to music/to speaking voices, to moving bodies in the space/to different voices talking though different microphones, one voice talking into a stereo microphone/…

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AAL’S MONOLOG

Der Aal ist ein seltsames Tier. Er wurde schon von unterschiedlichsten Wissenschaftler*innen erforscht und ist dennoch bis heute ein großes Mysterium. So ist noch immer nicht bekannt, wie genau und wo genau die Paarung der Fische stattfindet. Diesen Vorgang konnte bisher noch niemand beobachten. So steht der Aal für das Unbekannte in einer so erforschten Welt, obwohl es ihn doch schon so lange gibt.

Woher kommt der magnetische Ruf zurück in die Sargosasee?
Wie kann ein Tier über Jahre verteilt immer wieder unterschiedliche Metamorphosen durchleben?
Die Metapher von dem einen Ursprung, also dem einen Original, von dem alle Aale abstammen und zu denen alle Aale zurückkehren, ist Ausgangspunkt der Aalin-Monologe.

Tryout with lip sync.
Videowork – recording the text by different voices. the different features (male or female associated voices, accents and brokenness, situation of the speaker etc. are present and shall be subverted by the figure of the eel who later one will embody all voices, situated in different sceneries. We pitch our voices up and down, they change their quality, their characteristics. They get more and more separated from the body who originally produced them.
In the next days we will start shooting videos of the eel, working with lip sync and give the eel all our voices.

Monolog Stil Augsburger Puppenkiste, viel Folie
Viel Gel
Ein Tunnel
“Ich bin ein Aal, holt mich hier raus”

Whispered voice from the off, translate into movements on stage? Projection of text on screen?
(erster Teil aus dem off geflüstert) / bewegungen auf der bühne? text als karaoke projiziert?

AM ANFANG WAR DER AAL.
Das All, oder das EI?
Dem Alphabet zufolge, steht der AAL am Anfang aller anderer Namen. AALLERDINGS gibt es auch noch ganz andere Schriftzeichen.

IDEE: VGL AALE / GOLEM ÜBEREINANDERLEGEN/-LESEN

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reaction videos:

I am watching a reaction video. a video on youtube of a hairdresser commenting on people filming themselves, while they cut their hair. He keeps saying passed-out pink. I wonder what it means when colors pass out. Much later I understand he is actually saying “pastel”, not passed-out.

How a song can get even better by watching another person listening it for the first time

questions: what are we watching when we watch the reaction of someone? What is the person transmitting to us? It’s not interpretation, it is genuine emotions? or what is it? whatkind of communication system are we entering by watching those kind of videos?

 

Tryouts with speaking backwards, recording it. Playing the recordings backwards. A weird voice, hard to understand, somehow mechanical, like a computer voice, but much less eloquent than Siri, edges its way. Stumbling, stretching, this alien voice forms and carves words, just after a while they somehow feel familiar.
The backward written text looks in itself weirdly coherent, as if it is a language by itself. How to build your own language? What makes it look “real”? How do different alphabets, letters, language are responding with the reader, when they are not able to read it? 

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talking animals – interspecies conversations – how to hypnotise a chicken…
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WATCH / LISTENING/Reading LIST:

•  Dogtooth – Yorgos Lanthimos
• https://www.geschichte.fm/archiv/gag334/ – Über Aale (und weiteres)
• Das Evangelium der Aale/ Patrick Svensson
• Opium für Ovid/ Yoko Tawada
• Slavs and Tatars – Khhhhhhh  (and other works of the art collective)