Pressed Letters, for Lin Chiwei (2019)

Invited by the Barcelona-based Sonhoras series, I worked in residence in the beautiful L’Automàtica letterpress workshop. Inspired by the idea of producing a real-time Cut-Up Technique performance with the letters of the workshop, I produced a combinatory set of prints containing the scores for a rule-based, vocal audience performance piece: ‘Pressed Letters, for Lin Chiwei’. Lin Chiwei is a Taiwanese artists who has been working with ‘real-time tape music’ performances for many years, in which a long score rolled from a cylinder is read out loud by a spirally seated audience.

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The prints are made up of 4 different though largely overlapping instructions which are combined into 6 unique combinations, printed as front and back of 6 cards. Leaden letters used in the print workshop are gradually distributed around the space by the artist as material to apply the instructions to. Towards the end of the performance, the letters are gradually taken away from the participants again. By controlling how many letters are circulating around the space, a temporal form of phasing densities of voices, real and imagined language and communication is manifesting. The prints come in a limited edition of 85, numbered & signed, available at www.sonhoras.org

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Thank you Gerard Altaió, Lin Chiwei, and all participants in the 30 November 2019 performance at L’Automàtica.