after, in the wake of...crwydro'r byd

one speaks while hearing one’s own speaking, wedding the self and sound as a singular event... since the voice is capable of being internalized at the same time as it is externalized, it can spill over from subject to object and object to subject, violating the bodily limits upon which classic subjectivity depends (LaBelle, B. (2010). Background Noise. New York/ London: Continuum)

The voice is also felt in the body: it vibrates, through breath, in the diaphragm, the folds of the vocal chords and in the eardrum.

Words that desire to be said, that cannot be said, not publically said. The unsaid is part of us is held, holds us. Words woven into a nest that sits in the hand, long string imply possible future weavings. Words made material, 3 dimensional, words safe enough to give to you – but silent, unreadable words. I also give my words to a stranger [ripped into strips, rearranged, retyped, remade], he sits back to back with me, reads my fragmented words, I cannot see him, I can hear his voice as he spills his/my body out, I feel my words as his rib cage resonates against mine. Self and other.

I embody the words. I disembody the words – hand them over, both readable and unreadable, I re-embody the words both feeling/hearing them come back to me and as I weave. I hear and feel my words but do not speak them.

also see

Dw i’n crwydro’r byd yn chwilio am nghrud

This was turned into a perfomance piece shown at Beyond text: making Unmaking at The Centre for creative collaboration, Kings Cross, London. I wove and sitting back to back with me was a man reading the text I was weaving but in a unmade remade state (it included the text shown below that is folded into the cradle. We weave our complicated lives. Behind the smile can be layers of grief, anger, loneliness. Vice versa that grumpy faced person might secretly enjoy life. Perhaps if a person goes through therapy they can unload some of the stuff. But also it is this stuff that makes us, forms us. Do we hold it or are we held by it? I print out my words onto old paper, paper that might be from my childhood, could be as old as, even older than, me. (The modern printer doesn’t like it.) It is torn lengthways and woven onto a warp of string…I have so many balls of string. These two and a half fragile pages become something else, a form, a cupped shape. I knot the warp threads then turn it inside out. Where the paper has been pressed against the card loom it is smoother. I present something smoother to the eye. I can hold it in my hand, something that can contain, something that contains in itself. Text textiles Weave leave weft left leave behind what is left? shown but hidden public but private domestic inside is a record of two strips, justified. A record of all the strips shuffled, of whole words, is made....this can be read out should I perform the making. With great care it might be possible to unweave it and make something of the written text. But then the container would be lost. The idea to create the “cradle” and the text to use for it came simultaneously. I wanted thin paper for practical reasons but also realised that I had the old typewriter paper and that it probably at least matched me for age, it was relevant. Fine paper, the sort of paper that was used for a duplicate on a typewriter, a trace a ghosting. A life time of weaving my tale, a tangle of warp that could take some more weft.
a longer piece of writing about this work will follow......eventually also see here
I have previously used the theme of wandering the world searching for my "nest" .
Dedicated to Rheinallt H Rowlands R.I.P.