Conclusion
This article opened with a reference to Ben Tibbs’s Font Taktile, a touch-sensitive digital font designed to mitigate the lack of subjective expression and individual marks associated with texts written using a computer typeface. Font Taktile aligns with the yearning for more tactile interfaces and a heightened haptic connection with the technological devices that envelop us, a sentiment shared with the artworks discussed in this paper. However, it is essential to note that the artists presented here – or, more precisely, their politics of artistic authorship – do not aim for self-expression. Instead, their interaction with materials and technologies depersonalizes the body, rendering it a material entity among others. This resonates with some of the critical ideas of New Materialism, wherein materials are viewed as dynamic and active agents within artistic processes, revealing a life of their own beyond the artist’s control. With its acknowledgment of agential matter, New Materialism questions the traditional anthropocentric perspective that has shaped our understanding of the human in the world since the Enlightenment. This view positions humans as makers of the world and the world as a passive resource for use. New Materialism derives its urgency from the ethical and political imperatives that arise in the face of an anthropocentric vision of the world (Bolt 2013).
The art practices under scrutiny here center around the technologically mediated human body. Simultaneously, they illustrate the process through which the body undergoes decentering as a result of these practices. This prompts the question of what is at stake in a turn towards material and materiality and away from discussions of the body that focus on self-expression or identity. Visual theorist Johanna Drucker has proposed a reassessment of models of artistic authorship in relation to theories of subjectivity. For her, handwriting is “the most elemental form of self-expression, self-constitution through inscription” (Drucker 1994: 122). This concept has the disadvantage of focusing on the artist (referred to by Drucker as “the producing subject”) and his/her preoccupation with leaving authenticating marks on the artistic material and thus maintains the separation between subject and object. It also grapples with representational issues[31] that are not consistent with a thorough materialist approach. Moreover, discussions that revolve around the body’s identity, coded, for example, by ethnicity or gender, are seen to miss the point, because the shift towards a focus on material and materiality recognizes the material’s entangled engagements as indicative of the complicated production of identity as such (Haraway 1988).
The replacement of aural and ocular mastery with sensorial experiencing – what film scholar Kim Knowles refers to as an “aesthetic of contact” (Knowles 2020: 42–49) in both making and receiving artworks – holds significant ethical and political implications for the position of the human subject. I have contended that performativity is embedded in the various artistic practices under discussion. In the following, the link between materiality, performativity, and hapticity will be summarized by elaborating on how the work of the featured artists pertains to an ethics that diverges from the ethics of mastery, control, and domination. Observing the artists at work or examining statements about their respective working processes can offer insights into how these artists engage with their tools and materials as well as the ethical and political considerations at play in each case.
Henri Chopin’s demeanor during performances, as articulated by Skoulding (quoted above), conveyed astonishment, as though the sounds did not emanate from his body but rather from cosmic forces that seemed to threaten to overpower him. This depiction suggests that Chopin believed in a sort of co-authorship with – if not indebtedness to – the sonic material that arose from the creative act. Chopin’s sonic raw material was extracted from the continuous activity of his “body factory” through microphones placed both beneath and outside his skin. Once recorded, it underwent no changes or manipulations. Performativity and contact were inscribed into his practice during the recording process and during his performances, as can be seen in his live interactions with his taped body sounds.
After taking the necessary precautions, Vicky Smith lets the spit do its work independently, without interfering, thus accommodating the unexpected and accidental. This “being with” the material is also manifested in her decision to accept what she received without any kind of post-production. She also welcomes multiple authorship, as the – both intentionally and unintentionally – repurposed optical soundtracks prove. Noisy Licking, Dribbling & Spitting includes three verbal forms in its title, all indicating an action, a process, which she carries out accordingly. Her performative act consists of mark-making with the tongue on the narrow surface of a 16mm strip. The fluids “bleed” uncontrollably into the optical soundtrack area, generating unique sounds that did not exist before, as they emerge from the direct contact between mouth, saliva, and filmstrip.
Sarah Bliss, for her part, views her interaction with the lens as a “pure response to the inspirited subjectivity of the projector,”[32] which she experienced as her father’s breath as the projector’s light filled the room. As her statement indicates, Bliss grants agency to her working tools, which are more than mere objects to her; she also chooses not to intervene with regard to the recorded sound material. The employment of image and sound in Transit(ive) effectively takes up the medium’s haptic potential. Haptic listening is critical during her creative process, where the playback of the father’s audio memo triggers a series of gestures that suggest an affective contact with her tools and materials.
As explained above, Pam Aronoff`s composition for the moment of “dying” in Betzy Bromberg’s a Darkness Swallowed incorporates ultrasound recordings of her own blood flow. The artist describes her work as an attempt to find where the sound “wants to live and breathe” within the film for which it is intended, “without using any effects, going for totally pure sound.”[33] This attention to the needs and requirements of the material, and the readiness to attribute a will of their own to those materials, testify to a relation of co-agency and co-responsibility. The term “resonance” is not only fitting for characterizing the interaction between the machine and the artist’s body, but also the way the artist responds to the captured sounds as well as to the visuals of Bromberg’s film.
The making of Jacob Kirkegaard’s “Opus Putesco” is characterized by proximity and intimate contact. His method of sound recording necessitates such a close encounter that the microphone must touch or even enter the sound source. The recorded sounds of maggots’ feeding result from a performative act best described as an incorporation, leading to a drastic transformation of the corpse. Nature is simply doing its job. Kirkegaard’s practice is underpinned by a keen concern and respect for the objects and environments he approaches with his microphones. He believes that listening to the sounds of an object can channel a deeper understanding by operating on a different level of comprehension. His aims are “[t]o become a part of the world through sound and to engage with the world through recording.”[34] Despite their weighty subject matter, Kirkegaard consciously avoids infusing his compositions with emotion. Instead, his approach is characterized by sober and meticulous attention to empirical details.
The approaches of the artists discussed here reflect a depth of commitment and genuine concern for the specific intricacies of the world around us. Instead of asserting a privileged position separate from the natural world, they embrace a humbler perspective, acknowledging that humans are but one species among others. As opposed to a posture of mastery, an aesthetic of contact encourages participation and interaction with the material world. The sounds of bronchi, spit, breathing, blocked blood flow, and voracious insects attest to a substantial willingness to let the material speak for itself and to fold the haptic into a practice of sound (and image) that is less centered on the model of human agency and mastery and more attuned to the potential agency that can be attributed to the materials themselves.