Liquid Tongues – textual audiodescription

Liquid Tongues is a two-channel audio-video installation presented at the Polish Pavilion at the Art Biennale in Venice. It presents a thirty-person choir in the open air in the winter and at a pool, mainly underwater. The red of the choir’s clothing forms a stark contrast with the grey landscape and the blue underwater scenery.

The pavilion interior has an elongated rectangular floor plan, with an entrance on one of the longer walls. The space has been minimalistically arranged and is plunged in semi-darkness. On the wall opposite the entrance, on the left-hand side, we find a giant screen with a base eight metres long and a height of nearly 3.5 metres. It has been hung thirty-five centimetres above the floor. A second screen is placed over the entrance, slightly to the right, around three metres above the floor. It is in the shape of an irregular trapezoid and is just as big as the first. Films are projected on both. The space has a few cubes as well, and a wide pedestal with a surface sculpted like a wave. This allows you to watch projections lying down. On the shorter wall, on the right hand side, there are vertical prints with information about the exhibition.

The films are screened simultaneously. They both have a soundtrack and English subtitles with sound transcriptions. Both screens have shots of the pool and open-air footage. The scenes change every few dozen seconds. They recur, but are not identical. The lower screen has mostly collective scenes of the whole choir or smaller groups. The upper one is filled with close-ups and images that have been highly cropped.

The choir imitates sounds, speaks and sings in English, and signs in International Sign. Its movement has a clear choreography. In the open air, everyone wears red rain coats, red boots and caps that are mostly black. In the water they are again dressed in red, not just in swim suits, but also in shorts and long pants, skirts of various lengths, dresses, shirts, suit jackets and other clothes. The wider clothes and long hair rise and ripple. Most of their lips and nails are painted red. They are weighted by black lead belts to stay sunk in the water. In many scenes, even the open-air ones, they are wearing goggles.

A winter cloud cover hangs overhead. The shots have mostly been taken in an abandoned swimming pool, but also in a newer complex and on the Vistula river. The choir stands in tight rows or in groups, facing or with their sides to the pool’s edge, or at its snowy bottom. They are also arranged on the sandy bank of the river and a bit further back, on trampled snow. The choir’s movements are clearly tied to the sounds heard. They are mostly synchronised, brief and confined, there is little freedom. Leaning forward, backward, and to the sides and waving arms seems critical here. Among other things, the choir ripples their arms along their bodies. During a rhythmic tilting of their heads backwards, their arms dangle inert, then flutter quickly as they prepare for an energetic straightening of the body. The choir also stretches out their arms horizontally, ending by tossing their hands forward. At other times, everyone shakes their hands in front of them and sways side-to-side or raises their arms above their heads and turn around. They lean down and straighten up while signing. Among the close-ups there are also more impressionistic and poetic ones, like the reflection of the red of the clothing in the water or the hem of a piece of clothing flapping in the wind. There are also melting ice sheets and a stream flowing around a stone.

The pool scenes are brighter. The light pierces through the water’s wavy surface and casts shimmering reflections on the tiles. There are more abstract shots here. The choir, regardless of their underwater arrangement, are accompanied by their surface reflections, making the shots even more aesthetic. The images on the surface are more or less blurred. Sometimes it is hard to say if a red, wavy splash of colour is part of a figure filmed from very close up underwater or a reflection. There is an interesting effect when the choir stands motionless on the bottom in tight configurations, in rows or triangles. Their heads are underwater or over the surface, outside the frame. The camera films the choir from a distance. The bright legs on the bottom near the floor and their extensions in reflections recall steps. The red clothing becomes splashes of paint.

The choreography is partly repeated by gestures made in the open air, for instance, the arms waving against the body. Or pulling the arms from the water and stretching the hands out in front. On land, this gesture is unusual; underwater, it acquires meaning. It is a way of parting the water to swim forward. The choir must conquer the water’s resistance; it slows movement, but gives them fluidity and freedom. The people flow past each other underwater and on the surface. They turn toward each other and swim up to the camera. They pop up, breaking the water’s surface. They also make sounds underwater, they speak and sing, releasing a storm of air bubbles. They sign much more; the signed sentences are fluid and legible, unlike the muffled, incomprehensible speech.

Immersion in water gives much more opportunity to diversify the scenes partly played out on the surface. In one of these, over a dozen people stand up to their necks in water and whistle, turning their heads to one side. In another, a smaller group stands in water up to their arms and struggles to say the English word ‘water’. The camera also captures a circle of several figures underwater, from their knees to their waists. Their arms and heads are above water. They all look at their hands, which touch to create a ray formation. They churn the water and sign on its surface.

One person in the choir stands out. She dives deep without a weighted belt. She moves quite freely, like a dolphin or a whale. She swims among the choir members. She is dressed in long trousers and a buttoned long-sleeve shirt. She is the only figure filmed alone underwater, with a wide lens. She appears in the final scenes on both screens. On the lower one, she is suspended vertically in the water, head down, her feet touching the surface and moving as if to run. On the upper screen, the image is flipped, and the figure looks as if she were jumping up and taking off.

script – Paulina Celińska

consultations – Maria Nowak, Kamila Albin

translation – Soren Gauger