[ISEA98] Paper: Richard Povall – Working with Poetics in an Interactive Environment: Mouthplace

Abstract

Developed in collaboration with Jools Gilson-Ellis (Eire)

Richard Povall and Jools Gilson-Ellis began work on a collaborative project in late 1995 knowing only that they wished to use text, music or sound environments, and interactivity. They had never worked together before. This presentation discusses the development of “Mouthplace”, an artists’ CD-Rom which takes the female mouth as its poetic focus, examining through>visual, written and uttered texts the ways in which the female mouth is a site of contested and contestable meanings. The result of a 15-month collaboration between writer Jools Gilson-Ellis and composer and media artist Richard Povall, mouthplace rejects the aesthetic of computer-generated slickness and artificial worlds, and instead conjures up traceries of the feminine body and works with painted text, hand-drawn animation, hand-writing, laughter, poetic text, the speaking and singing voice, and rich sonic environments. Mouthplace offers the user a virtual stage within which to explore the archaeology of this oral cave. Using a simple format of juxtaposed still image sequences, video and animations, original text, and drawings, the user is able to interact with the world in their mouth. The presentation outlines the working process of the artists, the emerging themes of their work, and its ultimate expression in the published CD-Rom and installation. The presentation partners the actual installation, also proposed for ISEA98.

  • Richard Povall, UK/US, is a multidisciplinary composer, researcher, and educator, currently Associate Professor of Computer Music and New Media and Chair of the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) department at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (Ohio, USA). From 1995 – 1997 he was also Research Fellow/Senior Lecturer in New Performance Media at Dartington College of Arts in the UK, and is currently a Research Associate at the University of Plymouth. His recent work concentrates on small-scale and solo work using a variety of interactive media, and on new uses of interactive technology in performance environments. He divides his time between the US and the UK, and is published by Frog Peak Music (USA).
  • Jools Gilson-Ellis, IE halfangel.info/docs/jools-CV2006.pdf