BODYMOUTH
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE A VOICE?
ABOUT
BodyMouth is a computational sound-movement instrument created by Kat Mustatea that turns the body into an organ for speech. Wearing sensors on various body parts, a dancer sounds out words phoneme-by-phoneme by performing specific gestures in sequence—as if the body is quite literally turned into a mouth.
The geometries involved in speech production, including the tongue, oral cavity, lips, and larynx, are mapped in real time via custom software to precise spatial data from several trackers worn by the performer. The result is a mesmerizing blend of dance and language: a form of speaking outside of the mouth that discombobulates language, breath, and bodies in exciting new ways.
What does it mean to have a voice?
AWARDS
Finalist | Guthman Prize 2024
Finalist | Lumen Prize 2024 Interactive Immersive Award
SELECTED Press
[BodyMouth] creates the possibility for brand new genres of artistic expression.
Through the thoughtful and intentional creation of this tool, the body ultimately becomes political through the lens of identifying the specific needs of one's body, and therefore, a person's accessibility.
Watch: BodyMouth feature on CBS Sunday Morning with David Pogue and Jane Pauley
CREDITS
Concept, Direction, Design KAT MUSTATEA | Creative Technology YONATAN ROZIN
RESEARCH SUPPORT: Barnard Movement Lab Artist-In-Residence | New York University’s ITP / IMA Project Fellowship | Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center Artist-In-Residence | Onassis ONX | Nancy Manocherian’s the cell threatre Artist-In-Residence | New York State Council on the Arts | MOCO—Conference on Movement and Computing
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kat Mustatea is a transmedia playwright and artist who experiments with language, live performance, the computational uncanny, and Balkan aesthetics of the absurd, to unsettle and reconfigure what it means to be human in an increasingly algorithmic age. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at Ars Electronica, Linz (AT), New Images Festival, Paris (FR), CPH:DOX Lab, Copenhagen (DK), New York Live Arts, New York (US), The Cube at Moss Arts Center, Virginia (US), The Ferst Center, Atlanta (US), Roulette, Brooklyn (US), The Phoenix Theatre, Indianapolis (US), Stanley Picker Gallery, London (UK), among others. Her TED talk, about AI, agency, and puppetry, offers a novel take to the meaning of creative machines.