As a means of investigating how we use our inner/outer voices and languages expressively, I created a set of verbal and non-verbal ‘exercises’ that could be performable by anyone, including simple tasks such as thinking up specific words without saying them, saying any word that comes to mind, describing someone you love, inventing words, improvised run-on sentences, etc. etc. I was curious to not only examine how the connection between our brains and voices could be pushed in different ways, but how those challenges might manifest themselves differently in a variety of languages.

 

After asking eleven people affiliated with the Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China to record themselves realizing these exercises, I created this 30-minute collage video in ten sections with a short coda, each connected to a specific exercise. The video features performances in Mandarin, English, Cantonese, Naxi, Hebrew, and Flemish Dutch.

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Special thanks to Jay Brown, Zhou Qiao, Lijiang Studio, and everyone involved.