Beatriz Regueira Pons

Voices Matters

Destination center: Department of Letters of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio (PUCRio), Doctoral Program in Literature, Culture and Contemporaneity.
Dates of research stay: From November 15 to January 15
Synopsis of the project or work to be developed: Voices Matters

During my research stay in the Literature, Culture and Contemporaneity PhD program of the Department of Letters (PUC-Rio), I delved, from a theoretical-practical approach, into the performativity of poetic-literary writing and its sonified orality, in relation to the unconscious and the construction of personal and collective individuation, from neurophenomenology and new materialisms. The field of study was the Estruturação do self by the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark5, a "performance-therapy" that exemplifies a borderline practice between the aesthetic-political-clinical based on sensory stimulation through her Objetos relaciones (sculptures) and her "voice-body", a voice that touches more than it represents. Based on the bibliographical collection of the Faculties of Arts, Philosophy and Letters of PUC-Rio and on interviews with specialists in L. Clark, I am combining the writing of my thesis Critical Flesh. Art, Biopower and Plasticity in the Posthuman with the generation of an audiovisual narrative that explores sonified orality as an antediscursive instrument, culturally situated and as an empathetic tool for the cohesion of the personal and collective body.

1. Main objectives

1. To delve deeper into the Structure of the Self through the documentary collections of PUC-Rio, as well as field work through attending seminars, interviews with professors and professionals in the arts and psychology specializing in Lygia Clark and in performative writing practices (mentioned in the methodology).
2. To delve deeper into the work of the artist Lygia Clark, especially in the Structure of the Self, experiencing in my own body the "performance therapy" that is currently carried out by the psychologist Gina Ferreira, who worked with her in life;
as well as to expand the field work through the interview.
3. To interview the art critic and psychoanalyst Suely Rolnik, specialist in Lygia Clark, professor at PUC-SP and Rio.
4. To explore new forms of communication for a doctoral thesis that has as its object of study the relationships of the continuum corporeality-language-subjectivity-collectivity, from theory and practice.

5. To delve deeper into the influence of the performativity of formal, narrative and poetic language, in our construction as embodied corporalities.
6. To explore the voice as touch (as frequency) and its impact on body memory and the unconscious.
7. Experiment with the performativity of formal language in relation to the material qualities of sonified orality.

8. Explore the main influences of sonified orality (tone, rhythm, volume, hertz) in the generation of cultural identity in the context of Rio de Janeiro.

9. Explore the psychosomatic affects and conditions of sonified orality in popular songs in the Brazilian context.

10. Delve into the empathic and communal capacity produced by singing in relation to neuronsmirall and social practices in the context of Rio de Janeiro.

11. To delve deeper, through first-person experimentation in the Estruturação do Self currently taught by Gina Ferreira, into the prelinguistic quality of non-conceptual content that is at the origin of aesthetic experiences, in this case tactile (also understanding sound as touch), and the structuring role they play in the configuration of artistic practices (habits, skills, techniques) and their subjective, social and environmental meanings.

2. Metodología

Esta fue una investigación mixta, teórico-práctica, basada en el estudio de fondos documentales y de trabajo de campo que intra-relaciona diferentes áreas del pensamiento humanista y científico desde donde abrir, nuevas concepciones articuladas a través del estudio experimental y hermenéutico de la producción artística y académica.

3. Resultados

Los resultados están proceso 🙂