I. Abstract
Diptych (Gk. dis “two” + ptykhe “fold”)
Diptych is a live duet between two artists who attach themselves to monolithic paper microphones in order to create soundscapes conducted by body movements. Balancing choreography with spontaneous attunements, this performance explores the types of metamorphoses that can arise when two distinct parts are continuously juxtaposed and torn apart, synchronized and individualized, in an ever-shifting diptych.
The most prominent example of such metamorphosis occurs between the performers’ bodies and the paper instruments. Attached by hair alone, the body becomes an extension of the looming paper structure’s nervous system. In turn, the body movements give voice to those structures who sing in feedback loops with the speakers cradled below. Sometimes we performers appear to be at one with the paper structures as if our human bodies have reconfigured into strangely familiar beasts. Other times, it is difficult to tell if we are the structure’s prosthetic instrument, or if it is ours. Thus the boundaries of the visual diptych constantly change shape.
This shape-shifting also occurs aurally. Counterposed to nested, mobile speakers, the contact microphones built into the handmade paper sculptures allow for frequency compositions where the surface area and edges of the paper catch and resonate the sound waves below. At first it seems as if movement drives sound, but oftentimes, the attempt to attain certain frequencies is what actually drives the body gesture. At the same time, the two instruments generate sine waves in a phasing effect that forms new frequencies from the combined parts. All these variables enforce a degree of spontaneous improvisation where frequencies slip and shift unpredictably into a site specific architectural soundscape.
Most basically, the concept of a ‘diptych’ speaks to the collaborative form between two women. Our co-creative process is characterized by shared intentions, counterbalancing perspectives, and dialectically strengthening individualities. As a relationship, the diptych of two individuals highlights the integrity of each even as together something new and whole gets created. Moving into a performative piece, this dynamic is reflected through the performers who begin in a ritual unity that gradually differentiates into complementary parts. The resulting parallax offers views of the whole via the twofold parts, as well as the individual units in context of the related whole.
II. Last Dress Rehearsal, night before the NIME show at Glasslands in Brooklyn:
III. Glasslands Show
Thanks to Nisma for organizing and editing the NIME videos:
Michelle Temple & Aiwen Wang-Huddleston: Diptych from Nisma Z on Vimeo.
Thanks also Calli for the photos of the show!