What is sound to those who do not hear it? How does one listen to something that cannot be heard? What kind of sensory gaps are created by aiding technologies such as prostheses and artificial intelligence (AI)? As a matter of fact, the majority of non-deaf people hear only partially due to age and personal experience. Still, sound is most often considered through the normalizing viewpoint of the non-deaf. If I become your body, what does sound become for me?
I Am Your Body (2022-present) is a long-term project investigating how normative power is enforced through the technological mediation of the senses. It engages, artistically and scientifically, with the relation between sound, AI and the embodied knowledge enshrined in D/deaf and hard of hearing bodies. The project originates from reflections on Marco’s own hearing impairment – a genetic, degenerative sensorineural hearing loss in both ears – and builds on his previous works with AI robotics and new interfaces for musical expression – installations and performances that critically investigated technology and body politics. Grounded in feminist theory and critical disability studies, I Am Your Body celebrates collaborative research and creation, while evolving the relations between contemporary performance, sound research and interactive AI technologies.
The starting point of the project was a collective process of artistic research across social boundaries. Between 2022 and 2023, a working group of D/deaf and hard-of-hearing people, selected through an open call, met in regular sessions. Each group member shared, analysed and collected personal accounts of their embodied experience of deafness. The personal accounts and the collective corporeal knowledge gathered by the group became source material for the creation of a short film, a performance and an installation. The artworks include varied media, such as AI-driven audiovisual composition, movement research and prosthetic musical instruments. The project aims to expand the understanding of sound beyond the limits of normative hearing and to celebrate the interdependence of bodily experience.
The project was initiated at PACT Zollverein in Essen, Germany and funded by Medienwerk.nrw. In September 2023, Ex Silens the first performance of the series, Niranthea a 25-minute short film and an exhibition of the working group’s research premiered at PACT. A feature on the project by Kultur.West can be found in print and online here (in German).
‘I Am Your Body’ is a project by Marco Donnarumma in collaboration with the Intelligent Instruments Lab at the Iceland Academy of Arts in Reykjavík. It has been funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia as a media art fellowship and co-produced by PACT Zollverein, by Hyunday ZER01NE, Seoul, Korea and was supported through a commission by LAS Foundation, Berlin.