COMMUNITY: AN APP FOR ONE PERSON

Eight Performers of the Political Voice Institute did the performance at the GORKI KIOSK, giving an insight into working processes of the Political Voice Institute and investigating the (im)possibility of the chorus/community in times of social distancing:

How can we rebuild the world of relationships outside of relationships? How can we retie our bonds outside of bonds? How can we find a shared breath without being allowed to breathe the same air? Today, common singing is nearly impossible, as it is considered as one of the most dangerous forms of being together. The pandemic has hit the very heart of the chorus, existing concepts have started to falter.

The answer is ONE PERSON CHORUS: DIGITAL,RITUAL,DEFUSED.

Marta Górnicka, excerpt from the interview “Multitude” with Agata Adamiecka:

“The answer to the death of the COMMUNITY/ CHORUS is the ONE PERSON CHORUS. DIGITAL/RITUAL. DEFUSED. The CHORUS stops speaking in the literal sense. But it starts lip-syncing, uses technology which imitates voice, plays with the (non-)living voice, with distanced bodies and language, but it also multiplies its individual voice, turns the voice up to full volume! It is a CHORUS which functions somewhere between speaking and not speaking (like lip-syncing), but it is not silent. From one person, it grows into a multitude, it works with shreds, trash, key words, fragments of mythological songs and voices from computer games. It works with the scream, which comes from the very heart of the ritual, and with the digital laughter, which is its most powerful tool. This CHORUS plunges into death, but it still speaks in favour of life.

In Die Welt, German virologists warn us that choir rehearsals and weddings are the most dangerous forms of being together, of meeting. Scientists generally caution against all forms of GATHERING. Therefore, instead of the CHORUS, we now have a ONE PERSON CHORUS. Instead of SOCIETY: CHORUS – AN APP FOR ONE PERSON.

As an answer to the pandemic, but also to the diagnosis from before the pandemic, the CHORUS multiplies its voice and, speaking like a cartoon character, it lip-syncs: THE CHORUS NEVER DIES! – but it is already speaking as a one-man/one-woman chorus. This is because we are stuck in a profoundly paradoxical situation. How can we rebuild the world of relationships outside relationships? How can we re-tie our bonds outside of bonds? How can we find a shared breath without air? So, when you are asking me whether the CHORUS still exists, I say: no. THERE IS NO MORE CHORUS. There is CHORUS – AN APP FOR ONE PERSON”.

“This paradoxical situation is described perfectly by the ambiguous Hebrew word magrepha, which literally means a scoop or shovel. In the Talmud, it is used in different contexts related to the Temple of Jerusalem. First, the mysterious magrepha is thought to have been a pipe organ at the Temple. Each of its ten pipes made one hundred different sounds, and so the instrument vibrated with a thousand voices. At the same time, an object called magrepha was also used to scoop ashes from the sacrificial offerings burnt at the altar and – as explained by Rabbi Shapiro in his laconic, but moving speech – to collect the ashes from the bodies of Jewish people. The magrepha – a tool for gathering the ashes of the dead and a musical instrument of a thousand voices – plays the loudest music of all.

This is the condition of the CHORUS today.”