FLOODESIGN

Continued on page 64 sound resonates depending on the acoustics of space, so does our perception depend entirely on our condition as embodied subjects in constant dialogue with the worlds that we can and cannot define. The audience sits center stage, surrounded by subwoofers that emit sine waves imperceptible to the human ear. These waves drive the action of the materials onstage, and performers put objects or their hands against the pulsating speakers to produce, to quote Ashley Fure, "thick, incisive textures of morphing polyrhythms," thereby forcing themselves into the realm of the perceptible. Likewise, the human voice, ordinarily the primary agent of opera, here is a vehicle for breath. Rather than singing forward the action, the performers move throughout the stage, at times obscured by the massive installation-cum-instrument, engaging with the explosive energy of the forces at work. at the center of our and society's understanding? We are left with the primal desire to attend to the infinitely possible worlds that exist just beyond our comprehension. Georges Bataille said of the cave paintings at Lascaux that "the actual doing embodied the entire intention"— in other words, we are not inherently bound to that residue of paint or even to the identity of the painter, but only to the forces that compelled the paintings into being. "The Force of Things" is not concerned with representation but with actions that approach the limits of the representable. Just as materials change as the result of rising temperatures, and the Breath, fire, air, spit, intonation, detonation, thunder, bombardment, collapse, explosion: force is inchoate life pushing against the inertia of form. www.peakperfs.org 19 A STRANGER B Y D E N A B E A R D

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