“Opening of a Mouth” is a sound and image installation. The work features a series of graphic scores made from watergrams. Using this cameraless photographic process, the movement of Lake Michigan's water becomes imprinted on light sensitive paper. This process can never produce the same effect twice. Here, the water becomes an agentic force in the work, operating both as subject and as collaborator. Paired with musical staves, the portraits of Lake Michigan become scores, creating a legible guide for engagement. When performed, they too can never be replicated twice.
The installation centers acts of listening, translating, and gestures to other modes of communication. “Opening of a Mouth” asks, if we can learn to read and speak with land in an approximation of its own vocabulary, how else can we open ourselves to possibilities of communication across place, time and difference?
Documentation of the installation can be viewed here.
Performed by Ben Zucker and Lake Michigan
Recorded by Ian Carle, Stephen Lee Clarke and naakita f.k.
Edited and assembled by naakita f.k.
