101, Performance with a Mediapoetry Beads

101 performance is a collective reading of a human performer with a mediapoetic instrument. 101 is a mediapoetry instrument that counts the sonic beads of the 99 names of Allah. It is based on the use of built in camera as a movement sensor (Isadora), databases of musical sounds and text (Abelton Live). The sound is triggered with the movement of hand. The work reflects on the possibilities of relationships with the other: be it a parent, a colleague, a teacher, a spouse, or a god. The names avoid nomination, rather mark a universal catalogue of qualities of an other: superior, generous, only one, but at the same time torturer, killing, humiliator, reducer. In Islamic world these 99 names are used as a prayer. In the piece a pronoun “my” replaces the traditional definite article and male gender. This can bee seen as an act of both personalisation and desacralisation: the reducer – my reducer, the extender – my extender. The “my” is also a l’hommage to the Charles Bernsein poem My/My/My that was remediated by Nick Montfort and Anna Tolkacheva. Performer reads the list of names in choir with the machine. The reading is stopped once the contradictory names are mentioned by the machine and the performer.