I often think with the body—sometimes alone, sometimes with others—trying to sense where movement begins and where it becomes something else. A gesture, a sound, a signal. Sometimes I wonder: what does it mean to feel a sound before you hear it?
At this year’s PIFcamp, Diana will be continuing a thread from last year’s workshop Negotiation of Agency, Points of Contact, where she explored how bodies negotiate control and connection. This year, that exploration will shift into sound.
Her focus will be on what she calls embodied synthesizers: simple, wearable sound-making devices designed for the body or for two performers to share. Her goal isn’t to create precise instruments, but to open up new ways of listening to movement – and new ways of moving through sound.
She will be experimenting with different ways bodies might generate sound. What happens when a stretch of fabric triggers a frequency shift? Or when a brush of skin closes a conductive loop, and a tone responds to touch? Can sound arise from the space between people, from the tension or timing of a gesture, rather than from a knob on the machine?
Some of the configurations are very simple: an accelerometer worn on the wrist, a soft sensor stitched into a stretch of fabric, imagined as a connective tissue between two bodies, a tiny speaker buzzing against the ribs. The idea isn’t to build perfect instruments, but to create fragile, relational systems – ones that only make sense when moved through, together.
Previous experimentation in this direction available here: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/303774830