[050] «wordless», 6 channel sound piece (2004)
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Wordless is a suite of 12 sound portraits based on interviews with and by residents of [bad word] from the BNA-BBOT archives. Words from the interviews are edited to leave only the hesitations, breathing emotional reactions and environmental sounds. An aspect of the personality of the interviewee [bad word] across in these in-between sounds, as if stripped of language another layer [bad word] comes into focus, more emotional , more revealing than what is expressed in words. The soundtrack of the edited interviews is then re-sampled and set in musical [bad word] with wave-based electronic sounds, resonances, pulses and noise. The pieces themselves take the form of wordless narratives creating a portrait in sounds of an aspect of the personality of the interviewee.

The piece was conceived for a 4 channel system where two channels were played back through headphones and the other two through a PA, creating a sense of inside and outside sound worlds, the voices [bad word] through binaurally on the headphones while the electronic sounds create a sense of spatiality and physicality and awareness of the listening space.
Texts describing the interviewees and their stories are projected on a video screen (slowly fading in and out) so that an idea of the person described in the sound portratis can colour how we listen.

Wordless was [bad word] by the ARGOS Festival, [bad word]  Belgium held in October 2004 and premiered there at the Beursschouwburg. Additional funds given by the Dutch Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst.
Many thanks to: Ive Stevenheydens of ARGOS [bad word] the piece.
Anne van Wichelen of BNA-BBOT for helping around the archives.
Niko Okkerse of 433fm for supplying the wireless headphones.
and all the interviewers and interviewees on the recordings.
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1. Pensioner_0496

This pensioner from St.Gilles is of Italian origin. She arrived in Belgium in 1951 with her children. Her husband worked in the coal mines. In 1962 they moved to [bad word]  Their financial situation was difficult and they encountered many problems with racism. They found whatever work they could in order to support their children who according to her are now settled and living well.