CORD, a Live Art project by Tracy Evans
I have landed here in this soft place...
CORD is a Live Art project that explores the relationship that women have with themselves and their birth stories after the birth event. CORD is a delicate yet powerful performance in which a small audience are invited to listen to the soundtrack of a woman (the performer) giving birth.
The artistic enquiry is based on exploring how the visual design might support aural attention: we are asking how might the visual and tactile elements of the design support an audience to listen more deeply? The result is a very subtle, slow, evolving design concept, which shifts the focus from individuals arriving and listening on their own, to a group, or community listening together.
CORD is based on the universal theme of birth. In an internet age where we can access unedited visual recordings of birth at will, CORD steps away from the spectacle and invites us to experience the sound of life becoming life: a subject that transcends individual and cultural identities.
The artistic enquiry is based on exploring how the visual design might support aural attention: we are asking how might the visual and tactile elements of the design support an audience to listen more deeply? The result is a very subtle, slow, evolving design concept, which shifts the focus from individuals arriving and listening on their own, to a group, or community listening together.
CORD is based on the universal theme of birth. In an internet age where we can access unedited visual recordings of birth at will, CORD steps away from the spectacle and invites us to experience the sound of life becoming life: a subject that transcends individual and cultural identities.
by P. Morgan
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by P. Morgan
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Tracy invites each audience member in to the space one by one. In a small ante-chamber, each one is given a pair of cotton socks and is wrapped in a blanket before finding somewhere to sit on the cushioned white circle.
by P. Morgan
The audience sit around a large balloon (3 ft), which is wrapped in white cloth. It is lit from the inside and all the sound plays from inside on a wireless speaker.
by P. Morgan
The performer, who sits outside of the circle is connected to the balloon via a large clear pipe. Between the sound of her contractions, she very slowly releases the air from the balloon. In the last five minutes of the piece, when the baby is born, the sound is redirected to 4 speakers outside of the circle, so that the audience become enveloped by sound.
by P. Morgan
by P. Morgan
In this intimate performance a new story begins to unfold.
A mother listens to herself, in the presence others.
A baby is born. Again. Again.
The woman becomes mother. Again.
A mother listens to herself, in the presence others.
A baby is born. Again. Again.
The woman becomes mother. Again.
