Intimacy Alphabet

I wrote it in October 2020, during a deep state of mourning for the intangible social connections that were absent not only in my life, but in the lives of others that needed support. The pandemic had me in a state of emergency, and craving repair. Queer studies scholar Eve Sedgewick once said that the reparative is a reconstruction of shattered objects so that they can bring us pleasure, and that the affect of the reparative is love. I symbolically shattered music not into notes, gestures, or textures, but into an alphabet of affect and intent, hoping to inspire myself and others to create moments of intimacy, care and repair through microphones and camera. The shattered pieces are assembled in the score, and are reassembled through performance.

”Each performance of Intimacy Alphabet is organized through psychosomatic “triggers” in the spirit of internet phenomena Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). Each trigger is its own universe, but there can be some overlaps. Some listeners might recoil in horror from these sounds, but others draw in closer. Under musical aesthetics of affect, the invitation is for one to open to the performer’s intent to transfer touch and reparative intimacy through sound. Imagination closes the circle.”