This project aims to examine the intersection of sound, distortion, and belief systems, employing sonic fiction and the cut-up technique to highlight the ease with which media can be manipulated. By physically and audibly distorting speech through the use of sound exciters and projected visuals, the work explores how language—as an ideological tool—can be deconstructed to reshape perceptions. Starmer's speech on the far-right riots from August 2024 will be used as a model for a speech as a cohesive vessel for ideology. It will be fragmented and reconstructed to challenge notions of authenticity and truth. Drawing from William Burroughs’ cut-up technique, the project transforms speech into sonic and visual fiction. Using water as both a reflective surface and a medium for distortion, the work connects the spoken bodies, ideological bodies, and water bodies, inviting viewers to critically engage with manipulated narratives.
Failure is an integral theme of the work, reflecting the fragility and unpredictability of media distortion. Unstable synchronisation between sound, visuals, and water—or unexpected technical challenges—will be deliberately embraced. These disruptions mirror the fractured nature of ideological narratives and serve as a metaphor for the limits of control in shaping perception.
The cut-up technique will fragment speech into disjointed narratives, creating a sonic fiction that blurs clarity and confuses meaning. Drawing on sonic fiction’s potential to disorient and challenge listeners, the project will weave these fragments into an immersive experience, using distorted language to reflect media’s capacity to shape belief systems.
The installation will feature a body of water as the central medium for distortion. Beneath this water surface, a projection will display a video of me physically distorting the original speech, using the cut-up technique to visually represent its fragmentation. The speech itself will be played through a sound exciter at distorted frequencies, directly interacting with the water. As the sound exciter agitates the water, it will create chaotic ripples and waves, rendering the projection illegible through the very sound that plays it.
