above: excerpt from diaspeirō, 2024 (to hear the sound press the sound icon located in the lower right corner of the moving image)

Diaspeirō

2024

Monika Weiss

diaspeirõ

2024

acoustic vocal music and digital sound composition, 4K digital film

6 minutes 56 seconds

limited edition of 3 + 2 AP

below: film stills, dimensions variable, limited edition 3 + 2 AP

Credits

Sound:

“Metamorphosis” for voice a capella, composed by Monika Weiss

Vocalist: Ingrid Piazza

Recording engineer: Jeff Allen

Speaking voice: Saludos Desde Hamburgo, Guayas-015 Archivo AMAME /NKP-ECU

Image:

Camera: Monika Weiss

Editing: Monika Weiss

Movement performer: Madeline Aleman

Text:

Text 1: “diaspeirõ” by Monika Weiss

Text 2: “duerme el viento” is a line from the poem La noche y mi dolor by Dolores Veintimilla de Galindo (1829-1857), accessed at Círculo de Poesía. Revista electronica de literature, año 12, No. 20, mayo 2020

This work has been commissioned as part of Another Postcard Here and There New York ArtScapes at WhiteBox Gallery AMAME Archive (Audiovisual Memory Archive of Ecuadorian Migration) Poblanos, New York Voices Archive. Curated by Yohanna M Roa

Artist Statement

Diaspeirō is a sound/music and moving image work created in response to the inflections and emotions heard in the voice of an Ecuadorian woman migrant, who recorded her message while in Hamburg. Diaspeirō (in ancient Greek, “I scatter”) honors thefeelings of nostalgia, displacement, and solitude that I heard in her voice, beyond language. In the piece, you hear both her original voice, and the voice of a vocalist, whom I recorded singing a short composition, which I wrote as a song without words. The singing voice and the speaking voice are engaged in a musical dialogue. A visual companion to the sound, the image shows a woman performer as if submerged within the space of New York City, a scene I filmed from a Brooklyn rooftop. The protagonist’s hair is covering her face as she slowly lifts herself only to slowly bend back down, until she disappears completely from the frame. The work invites you to listen, while you sit on a piano bench, both to the sounds and silences of the two voices, immersed on the inside of the space of lament. 

- Monika Weiss

Exhibition

Another Postcard Here and There, New York ArtScapes, WhiteBox Gallery, New York, 2024, curated by Yohanna M Roa