Abstract
'The voice of many waters' is a description of God's voice by 16th-century Spanish Carmelite nuns. Despite their distinct musical quality, the Carmelite mystical texts have never been studied from the perspective of the sonic. This project is the first to uncover the unexplored sonic substance of Spanish Carmelite literature. It suggests that voices and hearing in feminine Carmelite spirituality are key elements of knowing the world, and contributes an original methodology—combining theoretical and artistic research—that uses Carmelite texts to generate a new experiential way of constructing knowledge. In a close reading of the primary sources, I will identify literary motifs of how the nuns describe voices. Applying the term 'acoustemopoetics' (acoustics, epistemology, poetics), I will formulate a composition practice to then reframe the theory: using acoustic tools based on literary motifs, I will translate Carmelite spiritual texts into sound, using techniques from sacred and folk music, oral transmission, sound art, and collective vocal creation. I will thus show how sonic perception, knowledge construction, and mystical frameworks connect, providing a new approach towards mystically-informed composition that can be applied to other texts. The project will illuminate the productivity of a reciprocal relationship between art and scientific research, creating a transdisciplinary dialogue between feminine mystical literature, historical sound studies, and sonic arts.
Researcher(s)
Research team(s)
Project type(s)