Building Understanding
Words of Non-language: Maximal Grip and the Hopelandic Lyrics of Sigur Rós
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hamid Asiayee
Hopelandic, or "Vonlenska," is a vocal style of singing developed by Sigur Rós, demonstrating the expressive qualities of language and the affective content of vocalization through meaningless sounds and syllables. This paper addresses the question: why does the audience of Sigur Rós have no trouble with the meaninglessness of words? Maximal grip, derived from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and further interpreted by Hubert Dreyfus, offers a potential perspective. Specifically, maximal grip involves the body’s intuitive adjustments to its environment, seeking optimal engagement without conscious deliberation. Furthermore, this study explores the perception of contextualized language within a musical auditory setting. A central question it addresses is whether a song’s core meaning is conveyed primarily through its linguistic content—the words—or its musical elements. Additionally, the study examines the distinction between perceived and felt emotions in music. The prevalence of non-native lyrics in contemporary music consumption is another factor explored in this study. This phenomenon raises questions about the semantic role of linguistic forms in a song's overall meaning. Finally, another critical dimension of lyrical content is accessibility. Even when a song’s lyrics are presented in a listener’s native language, the semantic content is not always easily understood. This observation raises the issue of "difficult lyrics"—words or phrases that may be obscure, metaphorical, or intentionally ambiguous. Consequently, such complexity can create a gap between linguistic recognition and comprehension, prompting the listener to experience the song as a unified gestalt rather than focusing on its individual elements.
Encoding Motion: The Choreographic Gaze and the Ethics of Representation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teoma Naccarato
Movement is ever-present. On a corporeal, quantum, and cosmic scale, movement persists regardless of our ability to perceive it. How then, do we make distinctions between movement and other-than-movement? Over centuries, the boundary between movement and stillness has been reconfigured time and again by scientific advances, as well as shifting theoretical frameworks in which previously imperceptible movement comes to matter. Integral to the study of movement across disciplines are ongoing processes of aesthetic differentiation by which discrete movements become intelligible within the continuity of motion. Once a movement has been discretized—for example, one gesture, one heartbeat, or one step—it becomes available for analysis and representation. The discretization of motion is shaped by the motives and methods of practitioners and becomes inscribed within technologies and techniques for the study of movement on both micro and macro scales. These processes of segmentation and inscription are not neutral; rather, they are mediated by what I term the choreographic gaze—a distributed and pluri-sensorial orientation towards movement that emerges from the entangled capacities of humans and machines. As movement is continuously fragmented, encoded, and classified within media systems—from cinema to motion capture to AI-driven tracking—the choreographic gaze shapes how motion is made legible and to whom. In this sense, it is not only an aesthetic phenomenon but an ethical and political one, embedded within broader infrastructures of mediation, surveillance, and control. The notion of the choreographic gaze allows for a critical interrogation of the value systems underlying movement analysis, representation, and automation.
Exploring Erasure Through Theatre: The Ocoee Project - Telling the Erased History of an Election Massacre
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Day, Kristen Morgan
In 1920, the year that women were granted the right to vote, a race massacre took place in Ocoee Florida as whites did not want the black population to exercise their right to vote. Over 50 African Americans were killed and all of the Black population was run out of town. In the Fall of 2024, a theatre production was created at Eastern Connecticut State University (combining live performance, poetry, music, and film) that told this important story that has been largely erased from history. The audience was informed and impacted through a theatrical production that was completely original. This paper explores how harsh historical events that have been erased can be explored through multiple mediums in theatre. Theatre can be a means to unearth the hidden and inform audiences as they are entertained.
