Utterings: Toward a Supra-Semiotic Telepresent Communication

"Utterings" is a networked performance and research group whose members gather online and, while blindfolded, engage in utterings as communication. We want to create an on the fly “new” language, that forwards attention, trust and affects, above rationality. Put another way, we seek to develop a shared, experiential, supra-semiotic form of communication based on our ongoing performance history with each other. Michael Bakhtin's concept of the "utterance event" as a node of intersection between lived, present-tense communication and atemporal, semiotic meaning has informed our research. Over the past year, we have enacted eight performances online "at" festivals "in" Nantes (France), Birmingham (UK), Linz (Austria), and London (UK). Members of our group will collectively discuss what we have pragmatically learned and experienced in our performance research thus far. During the panel we will make a writing pad available, where the audience can collectively write their thoughts on utterings as a communication form. Our group will join and continue the discussion on the writing pad in the last part of the panel.