Working Note:
Vinst is a virtual instrument for everybody to play and listen to – an entity on which I have vocally and rhythmically inscribed remnants of language.
VINST is made of my body as a resonance chamber, the virtuosity of my untrained voice and the natural rhythm of my breath.
VINST is played with a pressure sensitive pen - applied pressure (gentle or hard, continuous or staccato) triggers appropriate sonic and bodily reactions (from laughing to screaming via crying and ecstasy). moanlovecry. So that you may tune in to the instrument and turn emotions and bodily sounds into (non)melodic sonic pieces, according to your musical ability, sensibility, or mood.
VINST vocabulary is based on vowels used as pure tones, combined with consonants as percussive and rhythmic interventions and the sounds of emotions. This vocabulary contains around 40 different sounds and has its own system of an-notation. Vinst voc
VINST HAS PREDICTABLE AND UNPREDICTABLE REACTIONS.
An instrumental body activated by and waiting for the touch of another, any other.
Long live VINST
Some of the first utterances of this peculiar instrument - recorded soon after its birth.
Programmed by Sebastian Lexer,
Produced with financial support from London Arts R&D Combined Arts fund and Surrey Institute of Art and Design research fund.
”The birth of VINST2” took place on the 20th of November 2004 during a performance lecture at Toynbee studios, London (part of Performance; strategy and process, a series of events based around Adrian Piper’s exhibition and talk, curated by Adelaide Bannerman).
VINST1 (or Vinstenstein as I like to call it) appears in Performance Research volume 9 no. 2, June 2004, “on the page“ issue.
Bio:
My interdisciplinary practice evolves between sound language and the body, exploring their performative intersections.
Each WORK has a site specific public outcome, and may involve one or more of the following: a live performance, a video, an installation, a series of drawings or photographs, an artist book or an audio CD. In my performances and installations I aim to create arenas for shared sensory experiences.
I am currently exploring new technologies of interactivity in relation to using, hearing and seeing the voice and the possibilities of a vocal but non-verbal communication. Research is partly funded by the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, where I am a senior lecturer in Visual Communication. I exhibit and perform regularly nationally and internationally.
As Derrida says of what he calls undecidables, the neither/nor, as a permanent outsider, always being in between, (countries, communities, languages, minds, moods and mediums), I am an undecidable.
Sebastian Lexer is a musician currently undertaking a PHD at Goldsmiths College researching interactive music systems. He is an active performer of free improvised music and organiser of the INTERLACE concert series in London. http://incalcando.com/interlace