Originally commissioned by Festival Novas Frequências in Rio De Janeiro in 2021, DESMONTE is a composition and live performance for modular synthesizer and recorded voice presented by Pedro Oliveira for Between Land and Sea.
A sonic exploration on the afterlives of colonialism and the violence of borders, seeking to uproot voice from body and body from origin. A study on the limits and failures of (machine) listening, the composition appropriates and misuses spectral techniques similar to those of the so-called “dialect recognition software,” a proprietary technology in use for cases of undocumented asylum seekers in Germany. As the voice of death metal singer Fernanda Lira undoes the software’s workings, its timbre undergoes the most extreme mutations, pushed far beyond the comforting perceptual thresholds of recognition. Unfolding as an abstract as much as powerful case for the immanent opacity of the voice itself, DESMONTE articulates a radical critique of the positivist, neocolonial operative logic of biometric technologies.
Produced with the support from the Akademie der Künste Berlin, with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART Kultur.
Voice: Fernanda Lira
Dramaturgy: Giuliana Corsi
Curation: Mattia Capelletti
Presented in collaboration with Cripta747 as part of The Listeners. Realized with the contribution of Ministero della Cultura, Goethe Institute and Kultur Ensemble.
With the support of:
