The artists Christine Sun Kim and JJJJJerome Ellis explore how language and notions of time shape participation in societies and concepts of political voice. They counter these unspoken rules of communication with multisensory compositions that open up perspectives on embodied language systems and non-linear temporalities. In the conversation, the artists share insights into their work and discuss the accessibility of interdisciplinary art practices, scoring, captioning and audio transcriptions as visual poetry, as well as interruption, repetition and elongation as a form of political resistance, among many other aspects.
Living in a world privileging verbal and auditory communication, Christine Sun Kim translates voice and musicality into visual modes of expression. In these conceptual compositions, the artist combines her personal representation of American Sign Language (ASL) with written English, musical notation, and visual poetry to reveal dominant patterns of behaviour within societies and their institutions. Kim’s site-specific multi-media work “Every Life Signs” (2022), which was on view at Haus der Kunst’s middle hall, visualises how the method of counting is applied to temporal and monetary units in ASL. By turning the public space into a sensory and time-based score, the artist reflects on the rhythm of everyday lives of Deaf people, which is characterised by experiences of repetition and delay within communication with a predominantly hearing environment.
By interweaving music, video, poetry and performance, JJJJJJerome Ellis explores the relationship between Blackness and disabled speech. Gaps, stretches, and improvisation become artistic material with the political potential to defy prevailing economies of circulation, representation, and measurability. As a current “Tune” resident, Ellis will perform a series of improvisational performances called “Clearings”. Using piano, saxophone, hammered dulcimer, and voice, he will create soundscapes that these honor stuttering’s ability to resist linear time and open up spaces for reflection on Black histories.
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