Vocalizing Nothingness: (Re)configuring vocality inside the spacetime of Ottavia

Abstract In 1634, a Venetian academy, Accademia degli Incogniti/Academy of the Unknown, published a discourse on Nothingness, Le Glorie del Niente. Their idea of Nothingness can be simplified to the fact that words were the sparkles of meaning, and immediately when spoken the rational context was transformed into other meanings and purposes. Nothingness was in a sense fragmented but at the same time filled with paradoxes and multiple meanings. A list of figures of Nothingness was formulated by the Academy. Voice was one of them. The purpose of this Voicing is to stage an event where Nothingness becomes a part of a singer’s conscious process into an historical vocal manuscript. This event – being an essay delivered in both written and sounding format – invites the reader to join the singer in her paradoxical journey through words, thoughts and vocality. Her methodological format is built through a continuous questioning into how sensuous experiences of singing and performing can be understood and communicated in words. Theories and vocal practice materialize through one another continuously. The result is a complex poetic event in words and sound, serving as a model for how a voice can develop through a never-ending learning process of vocalizing and theorizing.