We Are All Creatures of Moisture 2006 with Maria del Carmen Montoya
What is the relationship between ritual and technology? Where is the locus of power? Magic? Science? We Are All Creatures of Moisture suggests that the locus is labile as the organic and the artificial interact. This piece explores the relationship between ancient ritual and technology via human endeavor through interactive multi-media performance art.
The video for We Are All Creatures of Moisture was inspired by a vague memory of having read Totem and Taboo and the clinical knowledge that we are in body but frail creatures of moisture. By using digital video to capture and recreate the visual world around my camera lens I use it in the original role of ritual: control device. My images are of a ceremony created specifically for the purpose of this project and based on the practices of Tarahumara curanderas. The woman healer drinks water and lets it spill from her mouth in a fearless affront to death on behalf of the sick.
The sound for We Are All Creatures of Moisture is drawn completely from the live performance of a water ritual. Written for eight channels, the piece culminates with an aural metaphor for the power of water, the essential source of moisture upon which all creatures depend. Low, dense sounds are manipulated across the eight channels in real time preserving the physicality of the ritualistic gestures.
In a performance setting the tension between technological and ritualistic approaches to controlling the environment are mingled to create the artwork. The raw sounds of a reenacted water ritual are processed in Max/MSP to generate the sonic aspect of the piece. The apparent supremacy of the digital instrument is subverted by its dependence on the human act. We Are All Creatures of Moisture is, in a sense, a hybrid ritual both ancient and new.