‘What the Water Holds’
Performance and Material Studies
Two connected studies supporting the proposed project. Looud explores its participatory and time-based structure through live drawing, sound, movement, and collective stillness. The material study explores how dense water-soluble crayon marks can be activated by water and transformed through acrylic media. These two strands will converge in What the Water Holds.
1.
A live collaboration exploring how drawing, bodily gesture, and an evolving soundscape respond to one another in real time.
Performance Study: Looud
Timestamped Highlights：
0:00 — Collective Voice
The artist reads participants’ anonymous handwritten emotion words aloud as musician captures and loops them live.
0:36 — Emotional Accumulation
Using crayons in colors selected by participants to represent their emotional states, the artist builds increasingly layered and chaotic marks as the words overlap.
1:22 — Rupture
At the peak of visual and sonic accumulation, the artist tears apart the live drawing.
1:40 — Collective Stillness
The artist and participants sit together in stillness as the layered voices gradually give way to a quieter soundscape shaped by subtle natural sounds.
Crayon marks → Water activation → Acrylic response → Completed study
2.
Material
Transformation
Study
Participants first created dense, spontaneous marks with water-soluble crayons. I then activated and dissolved the marks with water before responding with layers of acrylic marker, transforming the collective drawing while retaining traces of its original gestures.