Champ d'Action

Multimedia and images regularly displace the human voice into the background. However, in this concert the fascination for the voice remains centre-stage. Together with references to such historical avant-garde works as 'I am sitting in a room' by Alvin Lucier and 'Voix instrumentalisée' by Vinko Globokar, Champ d'Action wishes to explore the unknown possibilities of the voice. Voice and new technology go hand in hand. Since the legendary words "Hello I am A Hall 2001 computer" from Stanley Kubrick's film '2001, a Space Odyssey', the investigation into speech synthesis has accelerated rapidly and man no longer has a monopoly on the voice. Live electronic have extended the limits of the voice; hybrid expressive forms have presented themselves. Serge Verstockt is writing a piece for opera singers, a human beatboxer, a heavy-metal grunter, an actor, six musicians and a computer, with poems by the Antwerp cult poet Marcel Van Maele, extracts from Jacques Derrida's 'La voix et le phénomène', the first paragraph from 'The Rights of Man' and recordings of the first experiments with speaking computers.