FAMILY SOUNDS
first performed on July 8, 2017
Fort Tilden, Queens, NY
performed once in 2017
NINA ISABELLE
Kingston, NY
ninaisabelle.com
FAMILY SOUNDS
NINA ISABELLE
As an inquiry into motherhood, “Family Sounds” involves a site-responsive approach to the superimposition of an internal childhood landscape onto the defunct Fort Tilden military base. It includes self-reflexive research referencing quantum nonlocality, interpretive movement, and the manipulation of physical material to align intention with action as evolved ritual. To start, I visited my childhood home in central Pennsylvania and collected audio samples like gunshots, piano, flute, and conversation. I also collected materials from an old family barn such as safety nets, camouflage burlap, industrial velcro, and vinyl pieces. I used these materials to construct a giant robe, and from the audio samples I melded a multilayered soundscape as a way to create a tethered telepathic multigenerational connection. During the performance I blinded myself under the giant robe and bent my psyche into the constructed auditory and kinesthetic dimensions where I psychically “post-scribe” childhood memories as a way to explore motherhood. One challenge of working this way is that documentation and integration of non-language data uncovered along the way becomes difficult as perceptions expand beyond the framework of linear languages.