Your name, please?

Performance: Plywood platform, vibration, mics and AMP

72” WX 36” L X 3” H

2022

33:08 minutes

Language has many meanings and purposes in the world of communication. That is why there is so much variation when we talk about the language of art, the language of speech (verbal expression), and my language of “lip reading”. A spoken word is made of alphabets, many of which have similar kinds of pronunciations. So to lip read and get the exact word and the meaning sometimes becomes a difficult proposition, because the visual expressions of some words appear similar.

Example – Ma, Pa, Ba, Bha.

When meeting someone new, the first interaction we have is exchanging our names with each other. During Your Name Please? I invite members of the audience to sit with me. I ask participants to tell me their names, so I can learn how to speak it. Facing each other, we hold a coin together with our hands which vibrates as the participant speaks to me, helping me to understand the vibrations of their spoken language and recognize single words. We repeat this action over and over. Until I am able to say their name well, they will not stand up.