Messa di Voce and Donald Duck

The "Messa di Voce" (Italian for "placing the voice") performances found here, provide a new way to look at sound. One example, Messa di Voce: "Bounce (Jaap's Solo)," has one man on stage in front of a yellow/green background. He makes "special cheek-flapping," sounds, as the website says, and every time he does, black bubble-like objects shoot out of his mouth and float to the top of the scene.

This video, like the others found on the website, make the viewer think differently about sound. For example, near the beginning of this piece, Jaap makes several large bubbles among hundreds of smaller ones. I found myself asking, "What did he do to make these? It seems like all the sounds he's making are random. But if all the sounds are random, why aren't more large bubbles created?" Jaap eventually branches out into different sorts of sounds that don't quite qualify as "cheek-flapping," and eventually starts sounding like an enraged Donald Duck.

This idea of creating something physical (tiny black bubbles) with something that really isn't physical (the various sounds we are capable of making), is intriguing. By the end of the piece, Jaap has a large group of bubbles sitting at the top of the screen; but as he steps back to appreciate his work and pat himself on the back for a job well done, they begin to fall away, and try as he might, he can't catch them. Angered, he kicks and pushes all of the bubbles off the stage while making even more (slightly frightening) Donald Duck noises. Is this saying something else about sound? Perhaps that sound, and even the visualization of sound, can easily be lost. They are temporary things.

This visual symphony is an interesting piece. I never before thought that the sound of cheek flapping is actually the sound of thousands of tiny black bubbles floating across a screen. But apparently it is. This piece also has "intermedia" implications, as it is bridging the gap between opera (in a way), performance art, animation and other visual mediums. And by using a computer that accepts real world input (much like North Pitney's maze, where the person controls the maze, or animation in this case, by using their body and voice as opposed to a keyboard and mouse), the virtual/real-world gap has again been bridged.