A Performance Imagines the Vagina as a "Third Ear"
Visitors will be invited to sit on chairs and experience the humming sounds that vaginas hear.
Synesthesia has been a hot topic in art for a while. Installations have long invited us to associate sounds with color or vice versa, but in an upcoming performance, sound artist Miya Masaoka will be challenging our senses in a new and radical way: by considering the vagina as a “third ear.”
This Sunday, Masaoka is bringing “Vaginated Chairs” to MoMA PS1. Performers will be wearing vaginal inserts that pick up on the internal sounds of their bodies. These sounds, in turn, will be channeled via wires to a series of chairs, which will essentially function as loudspeakers. Visitors will be invited to sit on the chairs and experience the humming sounds that vaginas hear.
This is not the first time Masaoka has sought to expand our understanding of sound. In the past, she has amplified the buzzing of 3,000 bees through a mixer and attached electrodes to the leaves of plants to create a musical score. She has also composed from pre-recorded brainwaves and synthesized “the sound of 10 naked Asian men.”
When: Sunday, April 1, 4–6pm
Where: MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens)
More info at MoMA PS1.
