The Loud and the Soft Speakers

Abstract

The Loud and the Soft Speakers / Two Channel HD Video, 12'30” (2018).

Heather Ross's installation The Loud and the Soft Speakers explores an early performance work by the avant garde German artist, Kurt Schwitters, in the context of his internment in Britain (1940-41). Schwitters was known for repeating specific creative gestures across multiple sites - familiar ways of working were combined with newfound material and environmental influences, to generate something new. 'The Silence Poem' or 'Leise' (as it has also been described) was repeatedly performed by Schwitters at various points and in different venues throughout his life, but was notably developed and performed in English during his internment in Hutchinson Camp “P” in Douglas, Isle of Man.

The Loud and the Soft Speakers presents a contemporary iteration of this performance, filmed in the present day residential setting of Hutchinson Square. The film employs the performance as an exploratory tool for the visualisation and consideration of some of the historical and environmental influences which contributed to Schwitters experience of internment, and subsequently the development of 'The Silence Poem' or 'Leise' during this period. It examines this performance as a work of creation and destruction; as a ritual and a response; an expression of freedom and imprisonment; protest and authoritarianism.