Scree/n is a sound work based on a set of nine poems. It relies on the voice—its percussive ability, its inherent potential to distort or redirect itself as sound, and its harmonic vocal and verbal line—with minimal technological intervention, beyond the mediating act of recording itself. As such, it recuperates the technology of the human voice as an oral medium for the performance of poetry without relying fully on the reading of words and their semantic meaning, or their translation into musical composition. The fragmentation of words into sounds are thematized in the poems, as synthetized in the title Scree, meaning a mass of small, loose stones or gravel. The slash of Scree/n will be embodied in the installation with customized speakers that resemble a screen: that is, a rectangular flat surface, covered in black gauze, in horizontal orientation, to be mounted on the wall. Its appearance will emulate that of a screen in off mode, but will emit sound instead. Scree/n as a sound installation will enact the archetype of a screen, but redirect the assumption of the visual or moving image towards orality instead. It will thus simultaneously assert the boundaries of image, and by extension verbal signification, and destabilize those limits through the imaginary of fracturing rocks and poetry as sound. While expanding on the original works, the source material of nine poems was initially produced in residency with Kadie Salmon at Artexte.

Scree/n was exhibited at Centre CLARK’s Poste Audio, 26 October-25 November 2023.