Drawing on Paper, from Mind to Voice

SETZUNG 1.1 is a work for a singing actress or a vocalist, in which I explored a conception of the membranes as intermediary. This work extends my interest in the use of objects, e.g. wooden boxes, feathers, cardboard and paper constructions, not only for their musical or scenic potential, but as externalisations of compositional thinking. The work and its performance are framed as an installation: a huge translucent print of the score separates the vocalist and the audience. The graphic membrane is a statement about my compositional process, a potential space between a state of mind and sonic outcome. For the conception of the membrane, I draw on the observations of D. W. Winnicott about a third intermediary between the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ domains of a personality, where communication and creative exchange are located. Key issues of composition, text, notation and performance are tied to a highly personal and artistic reflection about a historical figure, the Baroque writer and nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Mexico, 1648 - 1695).