GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM: An Integrated Approach to the Vibrant Matter of Voice, Deep Listening, and Somatic Movement in Sonic Performance Art as Plastic Activism

Abstract

Through an analysis of the sonic performance artwork GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM (2020), this paper analyzes why and when participatory art practices can intra-sect and converge with ecologies to imagine posthuman futures and challenge pre-existing structures of thought. From an activist position that considers art and the environment as a participatory collective model, this article argues for a reappraisal of human influence in complex human–non-human interactional systems. More specifically, this text, as a component of GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM, approaches oceanic and sea pollution (notably the dumping of plastics) as a form of environmental degradation that has generated a space inhabited by varied and vibrant forms of matter. In this way, the sea and the sonic space show strikingly similar potentials. In turn, Plastic Activism, which advocates for a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts, is adopted as an underlying ethos and aesthetic response, with single-use plastics being incorporated into the performance artwork itself. Relational to this enquiry is sensing how we use our bodies to explore the potential thousands of distinct material ecologies embodying a sonic performative practice, especially combining the materiality of artistic and political action in public space and focal practices. In this way, the sonic space becomes comparable to a sea of sound, where complex assemblages of matter exist and intra-act to challenge the discordant systems and dynamics in which we are currently entangled.

Article received: April 25, 2021; Article accepted: June 21, 2021; Published online: September 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper