Claudia Medeiros ~ A Voice in My Brain Makes an Inaudible Noise: A Concert Score for In-(h)umans
Claudia Medeiros' "A Voice in My Brain Makes an Inaudible Noise: A Concert Score for In-(h)umans" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 4, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani & Giulia Crispiani.
Here you will find the documentation of Claudia Medeiros' presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.
A Voice in My Brain Makes an Inaudible Noise: A Concert Score for In-(h)umans
Claudia Medeiros' question: What representatives would you wish for if you were a rock?
Claudia's s introduction: I write to you from a recent past, contemplating the uncertainties of today's timeline. The sounds of our worlds often turn into confusion, and voices are eliminated by systems of power. How can we recover them when our hearts are broken? In a childhood memory, I look into a mirror, cradled by my father. Is this memory truly mine or just a fleeting image? In Baudrillard’s reflections on Sophie Calle's Suite Vénitienne, I found words that resonate with this memory of mine:
“You exist only in the trace of the other, but without knowing it yourself. Therefore, it is not to discover something about the other or where they are heading—nor is it ‘drifting’ in search of a random path: All of this, which corresponds to various contemporary ideologies, is not particularly seductive. And yet this experience is entirely a process of seduction. You seduce yourself by being absent.”
We are followers, losing ourselves in this mirror that reflects not only a myriad of voices but confuses and appears as a mirage of what we could be.
Bethany's report: The performance begins in darkness, accompanied by a rumbling static soundtrack that fluctuates and pulses, creating a dynamic and immersive auditory environment. Twinkling lights from various apparatus on the stage flicker faintly as the sound grows in intensity, becoming more urgent and discordant. The screen is activated but remains black, heightening the anticipation.
A collage of sounds emerges from onstage as well as the screen soundtrack - voices counting, fragmented and layered, interspersed with animal and nature sounds. Visuals of a flickering candle appear on the screen, mirrored by the performers onstage who light and extinguish their own candles in sync with the video. The haunting sounds of mosquitoes buzzing and spiders scuttling across windows are heard, as images of webs weave across the screen.
On the stage, performers spin large tubes, their motion generating whistling wind noises that blend with the soundtrack. Periodically, high-definition images of spiders in the rain appear, their movements magnified and rhythmic. The soundscape builds with the live generation of foley by the performers, incorporating instruments, triangles, and bells. The interplay between the visuals and sounds creates an immersive atmosphere, where the boundary between stage and screen blurs.
Images of legs running and fighting flash across the screen, synchronized with repeated spoken words from live voices in the theatre. The performers lie on the stage as the narration shifts to speculative phrases such as, "If I were to become a rock," exploring the transformation of objects and identities through sound and movement. Rocks, gravel, and scraping noises dominate the soundscape, accompanied by close-up visuals of rocks in hands and tumbling gravel, hinting at themes of resistance, political action, and material transformation. The interplay of nature, culture, and technology and the contemporary positioning of these as distinct from one another creates a growing tension. Clouds appear on the screen, followed by images of birds flying and rockets in the sky, evoking a sense of chaos and modernity. The candles from earlier evoke associations with creation stories and the history of technical development, tracing a narrative from fire to contemporary chaos.
The performance enters a second phase marked by destruction. Counting in multiple languages echoes through the space as images of condensation on windows, desert landscapes, and contours appear. The performers remain partially illuminated by the light of the screen. The sound fades, leaving an eerie stillness. Finally, the performers sit up, facing the audience, closing the performance in a moment of quiet reflection.
Ramon Amaro: Ramon opened his response by expressing how stunning the performance was, highlighting its use of a layered, multifaceted language that combined visual, filmic, and stage elements. He remarked on the dichotomy between the mediums, noting how they communicated with different voices while forming a cohesive collage. For him, the interplay of these elements created an intriguing and complex dynamic.
He acknowledged his limited familiarity with the specific subject matter of the work and how this allowed him to approach it with openness. Ramon appreciated how the performance invited spectators to engage without relying on prior knowledge or traditional points of reference. He reflected on themes of "track and trace," absence and presence, and how individuals feel, negotiate, and capture traces of others—especially in contexts where traditional perceptions like vision are insufficient.
Ramon brought in Evelyn Hammonds’ essay Black Holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality to frame his interpretation of the piece. Hammonds, he explained, explores how black feminist thought often grapples with asserting presence, which paradoxically requires acknowledging absence. Using the metaphor of black holes, Hammonds examines how these phenomena distort the celestial bodies around them, making their presence known through their effects rather than direct observation. Ramon connected this to the performance, suggesting it similarly explores how individuals distort and are distorted by relational forces, creating fields of energetic negotiation.
He described how the work elicited dual sensations of familiarity and strangeness, calmness and discomfort. Ramon shared his own physical reactions during the performance, such as fanning himself and feeling tension in his shoulders, which he interpreted as responses to the energetic release of the piece. He emphasized that the performance did not impose these feelings but left them open to negotiation by the audience.
Ramon noted the meticulous choreography of the work, comparing it to astrophysical phenomena. Just as celestial dynamics follow precise laws while producing phenomena that defy explanation, the performance was carefully constructed in its placement of bodies, sounds, and objects. This attention to detail allowed the work to unfold naturally, enabling the audience to engage intuitively with its rhythms and movements.
He reflected on the ephemeral quality of the piece, describing it as "floating" and atmospheric. He appreciated its demand for patience rather than comprehension, emphasizing the importance of experience over understanding. The performance’s sensory elements—sound, light, visuals, and textures—combined to create an evocative and visceral experience. Ramon likened it to a black hole, an entity whose other side remains unknown yet captivating, evoking both curiosity and fear. He concluded by thanking the artist for creating a piece that offered profound reflection and an invitation to explore the unknown.
Inti Guerrero: Inti began by thanking both the artist and Ramon, acknowledging Ramon’s reflections on capturing elements that feel indescribable yet fully charged with meaning. Inti observed that the work held a rich iconography worth unpacking, a quality that had emerged for him across the four days of shared performances and discussions.
He noted how his own interpretations were shaped not only by his personal experiences and references but also by the works of the artist’s peers and colleagues. He appreciated the artist’s use of repurposed industrial objects and the creation of a world that evoked both animal and insect realms. Inti shared an anecdote about an individual who, under the influence of psychotropics, found himself in a moment of profound connection with an insect, asking for forgiveness as a representative of humanity for the harm inflicted on the planet. He linked this story to the artist’s ability to conjure spaces of reflection and reconciliation through their work.
Inti recommended Cecilia Vicuña’s performance piece on insects, which explored similar themes within art, encouraging the artist to engage with her work. He admired the way the performance ventured into such realms, entering a space that merges the natural world with artistic practices.
He then turned to the imagery of the rock-throwing in the piece, acknowledging its deeply charged connotations. While noting that throwing rocks is a universal act of rebellion, he suggested it was difficult not to associate the imagery with Palestine, given its socio-political resonance. Inti praised the use of the slowed-down black-and-white footage, which, coupled with the facelessness of the figures, entered a poetic realm while maintaining its loaded historical and social context. He admired how the piece traveled through nature, showing how nature itself can be a force that dismantles structures of oppression. This interplay between rebellion, nature, and abstraction, he noted, was handled brilliantly.
Finally, Inti reflected on the piece’s use of candles, an evocative iconography associated with mourning, ritual, and honoring. He suggested that the work as a whole could best be described as a shrine. It transcended traditional mediums like cinema, choreography, or visual art, embodying the sacred and ritualistic essence of a shrine. Inti concluded by thanking the artist for creating such a profound and evocative work.
Antonia Majaca: Antonia began her response by engaging deeply with the concepts presented, reflecting on what she referred to as "the inaudible noise" that the artist framed as the key ingredient in their concert for the inhuman. She linked this to Ramon’s earlier mention of distortion, contemplating how we distort and mirror one another. Drawing connections to ayahuasca experiences and notions of specterism, she suggested that this distortion allows us to enter spaces where subjectivity and optical regimes are altered. It is through such distortions, Antonia posited, that we can experience the other in a way that transcends the visual field and conventional perceptions of self.
She expanded on this idea, asking what kind of law could bring us into this distorted orbit. Rejecting the "law of the father," which Kafka critiques in his parable of the gates of the law, she instead proposed a law that is fluid, relational, and rooted in felt experience rather than rigid structures. Antonia described this alternative law as precious, fragile, and centered on the recognition of others not through comprehension but through sensation and feeling.
Antonia supported Ramon’s earlier assertion that the meaning of the work is not necessarily to be understood but to be felt. This approach, she suggested, creates a space for weaving together a new kind of law—one that challenges patriarchal structures and centers relationality. In this framework, existence is intertwined with the traces of others, navigating unclear and fractal paths rather than straightforward trajectories. It is in this openness and lack of clarity, Antonia argued, that we might begin to cultivate a different kind of lawkeeping and a reimagining of value that prioritizes feeling over understanding.
She concluded her reflection by referencing her own text, Little Daniel Before the Law: Algorithmic Extimacy and the Rise of the Paranoid Apparatus, which explores these ideas further. She read loud the final paragraph:
“ Subjectivity bound to the white-male myth of humanism has always been a violent, impossible totalization. Embracing instead the flawed, unfinished incompleteness of the soul as the bearer of inhuman potential, as humanness unbound, is to enter the realm of the possible against the probable, a way of denying complete absolution to the data sovereign and its nerves of capture.26 It also means finally ceasing to be the creature that stands obediently and eternally in front of the gates of the Law, like Kafka’s pathetic man from the country, who dies waiting. The ontological heterogenesis once invoked by Deleuze means here not only alienating the naturalness of the human but also creating machines capable of constructing pathways for politicizing the collapse of the boundary between the world of matter and the hermeneutical world of the social Subject from a non-paranoid perspective. A political project of properly thinking with and through the machines and with and through the social brain needs a subject unbound to the voluntary servitude of either naturalist or transcendentalist provenance—in other words, it will have to be undertaken by a non-white, non-male subject of non-paranoid non-humanism conceptually and politically aligned with the incomputability in the machine itself.”
AEROPONIC ACTS 2024 ~ Chameleon Orbit