Robin Sparkes

"An Open Body"

Section MS11, Mhamad Safa

Keywords: sound music, body

"An Open Body." Converges resonance between sound and corporeality. A guitar, a vessel that echoes, is an object designed as an extension of humanity’s expression of sound and music. My project proposes an iteration of the guitar that deconstructs and reconstructs form to open perceptions of the body: the human body, the guitar body, and molecular bodies.

The guitar, with its head, neck, waist, and back, becomes a metaphorical embodiment of human anatomy. My research draws influence from luminaries of Beatriz Preciado, Judith Butler, and Donna Haraway, on body politics. "An Open Body" as a sonic odyssey, transforms the guitar, into a metamorphosis, transcending its conventional function - becoming a projector of sound, an amplifier. Referencing Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects - a radical shift in the guitar's purpose — it becomes an acoustic resonator, a speaker, a conduit for intervenes expressions, where the medium becomes the message.

As I present the sound of vocals and humming, the strings become a medium for the transmission of energy, mirroring the transcendence of human energy into the vast universal system. ‘An Open Body’ is a symphonic exploration where managerial boundaries between instrument and body blur. The resonance of a guitar becomes a metaphor for amplification to listen, reflect, and embrace the transformative power of music and its profound connection to the intricacies of our corporeal selves.

In essence, my strategy is to choreograph an iteration, as a dance with seriality that resonates with repetitious frequencies through the modular synthesiser. It is through this iterative lens that the transformative potential of the guitar becomes a harmonious reflection of the intricate relationships between bodies, both corporeal and conceptual, acoustic and technological.