Listening to objects: developing sound techno-hacked assemblies in the service of new relational imaginaries
The performing arts have historically been attached to the centrality of the human figure. Very little considered in the history of theater, the objects on stage and their performativity remain a blind spot in critical reflections on the anthropocentrism of this artistic discipline. We believe that the arts of puppetry and the field of technological tinkering constitute fertile areas for reflection on the place, role, and transformative power of objects and materials on performances and imaginaries.
We wish to question certain processes and conventions of puppet theater, object theater, and, more generally, animated forms, in light of what the techno-hacked assemblies invented by Thomas Sillard, a sound artist, allow us to create in terms of agency, real or imagined, of objects on stage. By listening to the behavior of these objects, we will question the traditionally maintained relationships between humans and other presences (robotic agents, sound sculptures, technological devices, etc.) in the performance space.
Our approach involves a conversation between collaborators and artifacts. The movements of these technological assemblies are partially controlled remotely but primarily depend on the interactions between the machine and the performance environment created for them. By undermining the desire for anthropocentric control traditionally associated with Western stage cultures and imaginaries, these glitching and failing objects propose counter-technological and scenic models. One of the central objectives of our approach is to extricate ourselves from a relationship of use (object/consumer) to develop new sensitivities towards objects.
We are thus working to renew relational imaginaries (complicity, friendship, intimacy, cooperation, mutual aid) between objects and the audience – and the way in which the latter participates in the very writing of these relationships.
Our previous research and scenic explorations have shown us that these dysfunctions, hesitations, and choreographic hiccups contribute to the creation of a dissident sovereignty that grants the object its full scenic presence. These gestures of resistance also engage forms of vulnerability – both in the object and in the performer facing it – and transform the audience's engagement and the forms it can take.
The prototypes created during prefiguration laboratories conducted at the Université du Québec à Montréal in July 2023 and July 2024 remain largely ambiguous, in the sense that they escape immediate understanding of what they are, what they can be used for, and the types of relationships that can be established with them. Sound plays a key role in this reconfiguration of imaginaries and relationships, as it constitutes an intrinsic language of the objects. Based on this preliminary research, we intend to create assemblies and gatherings (sound and moving) in unidentified forms to reveal their organic, mechanical, mineral, and geological qualities, as well as the richness of the relational spaces that can arise between these artifacts and their audiences.
Through a heuristic and iterative approach to listening to these objects that act upon and transform us, we wish to map processes and sound and plastic strategies that make possible the creation of ambiguous and strange relational zones between the performer, the audience, and the techno-hacked objects.
We believe that this repertoire of processes will be useful for the de-anthropomorphization of contemporary stages and the renewal of technological imaginaries.