The Video & Text

The BodySong uses a kind of incantatory/lecture form of text utilising medical terminology concerned with the horizon of bodily interiority (the unseen inside). This treats the body as a kind of tube through which the nomenclature wanders, territorialising the body into zones of disembodied light (the Eye) and corporeal-but-sanitised filth (the excrementality of the digestive tract). This is in counterpoint to the `extrospective' texts concerned with what might be termed `external horizonality' (e.g. The Mount, with its specific references to romantic landscape painting and its Burkean notions of the Sublime). The visuals present a kind of medical lecture in which the orator is eventually subsumed within and excreted from the interior of the corpus being illustrated.

The Music

The BodySong is comprised of two very different entities: Gregorian chant and images of the body. Writing in a style that is usually associated with God and Purity and using a text that deals with excretions creates a kind of critical tension, where the nature of both forms of text is almost subverted by the other. The opening of the piece starts with two alternating chords, with the voice ascending through these chords with the appropriate scales. This then segues into a rather humorous A.M.E.B. (Australian Music Examination Board) melody. The manner in which the text is chanted is based on recitation tones (which are a formal derivative of Western sacred music). As a consequence the rhythm of the text was left to the singer. However each recitation tone functions as a tonic and often modulates to an augmented fourth above or below this. The augmented fourth is not usually associated with sacred music because of its traditionally demonic associations.

Note: This was the 'blurb' from the "Liminal" interactive CD-ROM (2000). The video was made on a Mac in c.1997-8, using 3D animation and compositing, with footage shot in St. Petersburg, Russia. The music was composed by Glenn Rogers, performed by Alistair Foote, Penelope Reynolds and Samantha Podeu. Audio production by Alistair Dudfield. © Peter Morse 1997. It was hard work to make stuff on a desktop computer in those days...
Supported by the Australian Film Commission.