In My words, your sounds Marcela Moraga participated in a public karaoke located in Berlin’s Mauerpark. The Bearpit-Karaoke as this party is called, is an urban ritual for many citizens and a tourist attraction that takes place every Sunday during spring and summer. It has been organized by Joe Hatchiban since 2009 through donations. The Bearpit-Karaoke participants, people with different mother tongues, imitate famous hits, most of these songs are in English, so many of them also imitate a language. The performances of the karaoke participants are recorded on cell phone cameras, which are then uploaded to Youtube.
For the performance My words, your sounds the artist composed a song with different animal voices, birds and mammals that live or have their route in the city of Berlin and the nearby region called Brandenburg. The voices were taken from the collection of animal voices stored in the Berlin Nature Museum. The artist then sang the composition in this public karaoke. The performance was documented in HD Video and on a cell phone, which can be viewed on Youtube together with the video series of the other participants. The song was composed with the following animal voices: Red deer (Cervus elaphus), Greylag goose (Anser anser), Tawny owl (Strix aluco), Boreal owl (Aegolius funereus), European wildcat (Felis silvestris), Stork (Ciconiidae ), Eurasian bittern (Botaurus stellaris), Raven (Corvidae) and Wolf (Canis lupus).
My words, your sounds
HD Video and cell phone. 1 Channel Video Loop 3‘ 12‘‘. Color and Sound.
Camera: Gonzalo Barahona and Francisca Villela. Editing: Marcela Moraga.
This project was commissioned for the 12th Bienal de Artes Mediales de Santiago de Chile titled Hablar en lenguas (to speak in tongues). 2015.