I thought I’d start a series of posts that will be extracts from my Phd. I hope to re-engage with my research and also distil some of the things that I truly like about it. Here are the first few paragraphs of the introduction.
The voice is one of the ways in which Christians engage with the bible. The reading aloud of scripture is a ritual that most Christian groupings undertake as part of their gathered worship. This ritual is normally done with a single voice. I propose that this approach reflects and reinforces a hegemony, where dominant voices diminish and marginalise other voices. In response I engage with the multiplicity and plurality of the bible by using sound art practice, experimenting with the act of reading aloud in different ways. This leads to a polyphony of voices – the intermingling of voices of multiple readers and multiple characters in the texts. This polyphony is one that contextualises voices, where voices can have an effect on each other, since sound is so often contextualised by other sounds.
Contextualisation is often how we make sense of sound and in that resonance of contextualisation I narrate some personal context to introduce and make sense of this project. There are two realities that currently affect me as I attempt to finish this writing. This PhD is being completed while my mother is unwell. Part of her condition is a loss of the conventional ability to speak. She can still use her voice and speak but our shared conventions of language are lost to her. The voice is often connected to language and this project will explore how voice and language carry each other. My mother cannot communicate conventionally but those that listen to her over a period of time can more fully understand what she is communicating. To speak of voice and language is to speak of speakers and listeners. Speaking and listening is a key exploration of this project.
My mother, for the most part, can utter one word: “Ponnam.” “Ponnam” is a word in the Malayalam language that indicates a need to go – it encapsulates the phrase ‘I want to go.’ When my mother utters it, however, it can have several meanings: ‘I want to walk,’ ‘I am too hot,’ ‘I am restless’ and so on. It takes a careful listening and asking of questions to understand what she is communicating with ‘Ponnam.’ The sound of ‘Ponnam,’ which means one thing to most listeners, is now filled with multiple meanings and possibilities. What is happening here is polyvalence, a multiplicity that polyphony alludes to; what seems to be a single thing, ‘Ponnam,’ refers to many things and sometimes many things together: ‘I am uncomfortable, and I would like to sit up.’ Similarly, polyphony often seems like a unity, a single thing, but it is many things occurring together. Distinguishing the differences within, and how they work together, will give a fuller and better understanding of the situation/s we find ourselves in.
I use the word ‘Ponnam,’ a word in Malayalam. The presence of a foreign language points to a difference: a difference of culture, of personhood, of being. Growing up with two different languages, in two different cultures, I have had to negotiate how these differences work with each other with no easy resolution. Living with this multiplicity is personal to me but most human beings must live and engage with some form of multiplicity in their daily living.
An important point of connection with my mother is the reading aloud of the bible. I read aloud to her and we both listen to versions of audio bibles across two languages. The bible is a site of complex interweaving relationships and connections for us. It connects us to the past by evoking memories, remembered stories and phrases; it connects Christians because it is a shared sacred text across the community; it forms identity while also giving the potential to reconstrue identity. The bible, with its multiple books, meanings and voices, is the site of inquiry.
Sacred Blue 