[a collaborative writing experiment]

write | read

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[scroll up and click “write” to participate in the experiment]
[scroll up and click “read” to see what comes out of it]
[keep scrolling down the page for more information]

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modularSoundStories is a collaborative writing experiment i ran at Donaueschingen Festival 2017 (as part of the Crab Bear Lab workshop with Steffen Krebber) and at Darmstadt Summer Course 2018 (as part of the Composing with the Archive workshop with Kristen Reese). overall, i collected sound descriptions from over 100 participants¹ using a technique inspired by the Surrealists’ exquisite corpse: each participant was asked to continue a sound description written by another participant, who was asked to continue a sound description written by another participant, and so forth.² unlike an exquisite corpse, however, the description each participant was asked to continue, was not necessarily the description written by the participant who directly preceded them, but instead a description chosen randomly. another difference was that after writing the description, the participant could also select if one or more of three other sound descriptions (written by other participants) could follow the description they had written. accordingly, rather than a single linear sequence (as is typical of an exquisite corpse), what emerged was a network to be read in a choose-your-own-adventure fashion.

at both workshops, the final concert included a 5-minute silent performance in which i presented a sequence of sound descriptions generated live for the audience to read and imagine. see below photos from the Donaueschingen performance (taken by composers and fellow workshop participants Cindy Giron and Marcela Lucatelli).

read Max Erwin’s review of the Donaueschingen performance.

note that the experiment is still going on. scroll up and click “write” to participate. click “read” to generate a sound story.

notes:
¹ here is a partial list of the participants: Adrian Nagel, Amir Shpilman, Haize Lizarazu, Wingel Gilberto Pérez Mendoza, Diego Jiménez Tamame, Marton Illes, Brigitte Keusch, Angélique Marroni, Louis De Ceuninck, Alberto Granados Reguilón, Leonhard Dering, Klemens Vetter, Maude Cotton Toyo Gilson, Javier Frausto, Ole Hübner, Luis Homedes López, Fabian Martin, Rafaele Maria Andrade, Óscar Escudero, Luca De Falco, Marcela Lucatelli, Matic Romih, Christoph Blum, Daniel Meyer, Carlos E. López, Cindy Giron, Örnólfur Eldon Þórsson, Samuel Walther, Benny Janisch, Pablo Behm, Gleb Kanasevich, Maico Tomita, Matt Grouse, Asia Ahmetjanova, Kuba Krzewiński, Jenna Lyle, David Helbich, Nigel McBride, Amir Weitzman, Amy Bryce, Clarice Rarity, Ding Zhang, Chi Him Chik, Vanessa C. Yuan Teng, Primož Sukič, Gašper Livk, Alex Held, Adriana Minu, Zacharias Fasshauer, Jaeyeon Jo, Hannah Eisendle, Carlos G. Hernández, Edvardas Šumila, Anat Nazarathy, Johnathon Win, Mathilde Bernard, Johannes Raiser, Yoav Levy, Simon Al-Odeh, Ági Peregi, Elena Rykova, Avshalom Ariel, Ido Akov, Lee Jia Yi, Or Shemesh, Dakota Wayne, Juta Pranulytė, Nick Snowball, Victoria Cheah, Raimonda Žiūkaitė, Johannes Kreidler, and Natalia Prokopenko. (back)
² i wrote the first sound description: “only hiss, nothing more. after a while, some short ‘sh’ sounds and a small crowd of people talking from far away.” (back)