Tinnitus: An Introduction to the Project

This project unofficially began about six months ago in a studio called PerformanceWorks Northwest in Southeast Portland. I initiated this blog at that time, but it seems appropriate that the blog hasn’t taken full form until now, when our preliminary explorations are beginning to move toward choreography. As a corollary to this text I will also post some pages from the production notebook as well as the videos from rehearsals 2-7, finishing with an excerpt from a 30-minute improvisation. This will bring the documentation fully up to date. But before all that, let us examine the origins of the project, beginning with a humble definition:

[L. tinnītus, f. tinnīre to ring, tinkle] A sensation of ringing in the ears.

It is probably true that Oxford English Dictionary’s succinct description of tinnitus accurately reflects the popular understanding of the word, however to my mind it fails to capture the most conceptually evocative characteristics of this illusory affliction. A more suggestive rendering might be:  the perception of sound which has no external referent, something which no one else can hear — indeed it is the ghost of sound.

This seems more accurate from a medical perspective:  there is a host of varying causes for tinnitus (anything from excess fluid and/or wax build-up in the ear to aging to noise-induced hearing loss) and as such it manifests itself differently in each sufferer. The American Tinnitus Association comments that although often referred to as a ringing in the ear, “some people hear hissing, roaring, whistling, chirping, or clicking. Tinnitus can be intermittent or constant-with single or multiple tones-and its perceived volume can range from subtle to shattering.” It is also, as ATA goes on to say, “a symptom and not a disease.”

From this definition of tinnitus we can begin to distill some of the guiding sonic, spatial, and kinetic themes of our choreographic exploration:

SOUNDSCAPE

There is a sense of temporal displacement involved in this definition, in that tinnitus is the effect of hearing damage and not the cause of it. The affliction thus invites the sufferer to a posteriori reflection, a reconsideration of cause in the wake of effect. The sonic resonance serves as a constant reminder of something lost, an ever-present ghost to remind one of now-absent experiences. It is for this reason that Tinnitus will focus on the experience of damaged hearing, and not the cause of it. Its soundscape will therefore generally privilege living, breathing sonic textures over noise collage.

SPACE

We are designing Tinnitus to be installed in a deep, narrow, open space. By stepping away from the wide, flat canvas of the traditional proscenium stage, we hope to focus on the temporal characteristics of space more than just the composition of spatial relations. As we move deeper into space, the continuum of time begins to warp and fragment. This is another way of imagining the temporal displacement of tinnitus discussed above.

If tinnitus can be characterized by contradictory physical properties (it inhabits a space between silence and sound, between line and wave), then we can say that the long, narrow line of the performance space serves as a reminder of the reality of silence.

MOVEMENT

At the same time, our movement through this line of space will play the illusory role of the phantom wave. I have relatively little to say on the matter of movement, and since this video-infused blog is meant to document our attempts to embody the line/wave contradiction of tinnitus, it seems appropriate to cut myself off here and let the rest speak for itself. I will, however, leave you with our guiding image:

Or, perhaps more evocatively:

On behalf of Sara Naegelin, Leah Wilmoth, and myself, welcome to the world of Tinnitus!

Taylor A. Young