The dinner party acts as a performative event putting into play social difference, collective sharing, and embodied expressions all shaped and contoured by the flow of food and drink. The time of the meal then is a point of contact weaving individuality into a fluctuating mesh finding form in the presentation of the table, and the meetings taking place there. The table then is a kind of stage, and the passing of words and actions a loose script enacted amidst the ingestion of food and the subtle frictions that place the body in particular roles. Focusing on the dinner party, “Table Talk” is an amplification of the embedded and inherent choreography every meal sets in motion, highlighting the particular verbal rhythms that flow across the table. Capturing the dinner as an audible performance, the work further places on stage the voice as material, as object passed from person to person and shifting under the flux of eating. Dining situates the voice in an excess of movement and exuberance, uncovering a sociology of the table.

(Brandon LaBelle)

Statement of the artist

Listen to the whole dinner:

1st Hour

2nd Hour

3rd Hour

4th Hour

Brandon LaBelle

VOICES:

• Gisela Steinlechner (literature scholar and Author)
  
• fii alias Michael Krappel (vocal artist and musician)
  
• Nikolaus Gansterer (artist, founder of the Institute for Transacoustic Research)
  
• Bodo Hell (writer, shepherd)
  
• Brandon LaBelle (sound artist and writer)
  
• Katrin Navessi (singer-/songwriter)
  
• Annette Stahmer (communications designer)
  
• Barbara Ziegelbauer (psychotherapist)
  
  Ton: Martin Leitner
  
  Catering: Christiane Wilfling + Charlotte Körtvélyessy – Basilicum Essen & Trinken
  
  A cooperation with TONSPUR (Peter Szely, Georg Weckwerth)
  http://www.tonspur.at/
  
  Link:
  http://www.errantbodies.org