Language as an artistic tool has been widely used in conceptual and particularly in sound art for more than a century. From the russian linguistic abstractionism to the phonetic poems of Dada, to Stockhausen’s experiments with text and voice, to contemporary electro-acoustic works in this day and age, languages still have vast potential for creative explorations and studies. In my master’s project “Language as a Sound Object” I aim to find new ways of listening to sounds of our native or second languages. Exploiting text and voice as main instruments and using experimental techniques, the project demonstrates the unheard and overlooked auditory aspects of languages. Together with a group of participants, I have created a number of scores that seek to reveal sonic characteristics of their native languages and recorded the performances for further scrutiny and manipulation. As a result, a series of compositions was produced and presented digitally as an interactive website providing a listener with ways to experience sound of languages and actively participate. SOOLA is an ongoing initiative with an endless capacity to involve more participants, mother tongues and experimental methods that help to uncover hidden and overlooked qualities of such an everyday means of human communication as language. 

Konstantin Kazhev 

http://soola.website