Installation / Heteroglossia

The term heteroglossia was conceived by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin to describe the ever evolving and inter-textual nature of language/dialogue within the novel. It refers to both the direct intention of the character who is speaking, and the author's intention which is refracted through the autonomous personality of the character.

The phrase used in this piece was taken from the book 'Musica Practica' by Mchael Chanan;

"The natural condition of speech is dialogue, and every utterance is inherently reponsive, a link in a complex chain of other utterances, of the same kind, and of other kinds".

The recorded utterance is presented using three concealed computers running the Max/MSP/Jitter programming language. Each computer is attached to a graphic drawing tablet and a TV. Participants are able to interact with the sound and image by drawing on the graphic tablets. This allows them to create a dialogue in the space through exploration of a variety of sonic and visual possibilites.

Heteroglossia from Rees Archibald on Vimeo.