If My Skin Turned to Bark

Monika Weiss’ Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya)

by Anna Heflin

in Which Sinfonia / New Music, New York, 2022

“How would it sound if my skin turned to bark?” This question acted as a Dog Star for New-York based Polish intermedia artist Monika Weiss (b.1964 in Warsaw) in the creation of Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya) (2021), a sound composition devoted to the victims of gendered violence. The work is inspired by the poetic and violent myth of the nymph Daphne, who escaped rape by self-transformation into a tree.

On display as part of the Sleepless in Warsaw exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, the piece was the only sound work presented in this historical and present day feminist exhibition of Polish and Ukrainian artists. The setup for Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya) is simple and profound – a piano bench with headphones, facing a blank wall in the corner with a few subtle listening suggestions. 

Daphne's story is reflected in the five-movement work by a series of sonic transformations, some audible and others process oriented. The first four movements are based on recordings of Weiss playing improvisations on piano, the recordings of which have been transformed into electronic sound. Without the brief gallery description, one would never guess that these electronics originated from the piano. The fifth movement features voices singing microtonal vowels that invoke sensations of prayer; in this movement the voices and electronics exist independently and, also, merge into each other seamlessly. Since the piece is constantly playing in loop as an installation, the order in which the movements are heard is determined by when in the cycle the listener sits down. 

There’s something so physically soothing and regenerative about the sonic landscape, partially due to the consistent beating and balance of high and low pitch registers. I felt the recurring desire to shut my eyes, my shoulders dropping, and the beginning of a gentle rocking motion in my spine. The sounds are enveloping, well panned and the volume in the headphones is encompassing without being uncomfortably loud. This primal desire to go inward danced with the innate vulnerability of being physically cornered, eyes shut with my back to people in the gallery.

Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya) wass on view at A.I.R. gallery until September 4, 2022, but will be transformed into a sound companion to Weiss’s upcoming monument/antimonument Nirbhaya in late 2023. Nirbhaya will open for 6-months at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, the gateway to the United Nations in NYC and will have a permanent sister monument/antimonument in Poland. Weiss graciously met me at A.I.R. Gallery to give me a tour and speak with me about her work. After sharing a little about my listening experience, Weiss showed me mock-up photos of Nirbhaya, a horizontal sarcophagus filled with water in which a moving image of two women shrouded in black cloth performing gestures of lamentation will slowly become a tree.

In Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya) the sound work and Nirbhaya the monument/antimonument, Weiss is thinking about the lament as an aesthetic form, not a private feeling. She shared her enthusiasm for the research of scholar Margaret Alexiou, who discovered the lament to be the oldest form of music. Asking what drew her to water, Weiss shared that water has the potential to wash off pain. This isn’t the first time that Weiss has worked with water in her works, the element also plays a prominent role in her Ennoia series – a series of sculptures inspired by the shape of the baptismal font.

Weiss works in sound, moving image, sculpture, performance, and drawing. This fluid approach and Weiss’ self-identification as an intermedia artist is very much in line with her mentor, experimental maverick Phill Niblock, who she was introduced to over twenty years ago after arriving to NYC. And while she moves across mediums, she was quick to add that “sound always comes first” and is the core of her practice. 

The upcoming monument/antimonument Nirbhaya will be accompanied by Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya), the sound composition, which visitors will be able to listen to on their devices. And, as Weiss pointed out to me, “sound can’t be imprisoned, it always moves through.”

On September 2, 2022, A.I.R. Gallery presented a 30-min. concert/durational sound Metamorphosis/Dafne (Nirbhaya) by Monika Weiss, followed by a talk with Izabella Gustowska. This event also commemorated one of the most important figures in Polish feminist art Natalia LL who passed on August 12, 2022, a week after opening of Sleepless in Warsaw. Learn more here.

Anna Heflin, New York, 2022

Anna Heflin is a conservatory trained violist who writes music and words. She creates deeply researched intermedia works and staged performance pieces that incorporate text, theatrical elements, and multimedia components. Heflin's large-scale pieces construct immersive, dream-like worlds, with non-linear narratives that thrive on musical and psychological fragmentation. She is deeply committed to the field of contemporary music, and founded Which Sinfonia with fellow Co-Editor Emery Kerekes in 2021 to foster a community of artist-writers. She is based in NYC.