Riddles and Vowels
first performed during 'The Current is Coming Towards Us', a public event which concluded a 14-day residency in Arnis, Germany, 2018
Performed at gif #11, Artist Commons, Brussels, 2019
Riddles and Vowels investigates how sound travels within our vocal tracts to produce an ‘Umlaut’, the assimilation of two sounds into one. This process happened around the same time as the Angles tribes migrated from the Anglia peninsula in northern Germany (today Schleswig-Holstein), to what is now Great Britain, and affected all languages from Old English to Old Norse to German. By recording some of Arnis’ residents voices and mixing them with the equivalent vowels of the English language, Duta creates a soundscape that contemplates movement – in language and territory – across time.
Thanks to Sophie Mackfall and Arnis residents Rita Gäbler, Claus Lübbert, Christian Schuhmacher, Liselotte Wiese, who agreed to be recorded for this project.