Mute complex #3 & #5 by Louisa Love

Audio composition

Artist statement: I came to identify and be diagnosed as neurodivergent (autistic/ADHD) at age 30 following a major mental health breakdown during the pandemic, and many years of repeated burnout, overwhelm and mental health struggles I couldn’t explain; a multitude of things ultimately not caused by external circumstances but some deep, ‘abstract’ internal system of being that seemed to make me think and experience the world a bit differently, more intensely. A feeling that, as complicated and unruly as life is, I was missing some mystery guidebook to life that everyone else seemed to be privy to. I increasingly wondered why I can excel and lose myself passionately in creative endeavours, but often feel unable to deal with basic tasks or decisions. Why I always felt exhausted and behind, why communication can feel so difficult to navigate, and why I need at least three times as long to complete things as my peers. Over the years my neurodivergence went undiagnosed, especially into adulthood, I felt like my cognition was breaking down into lots and lots of tiny fragments. Like I existed as a mess of parts that wouldn’t quite function or fit together properly. It became fundamentally harder and harder to hold on to my thoughts, my memory, relationships, a general state of health, and an ability to find words and communicate. I of course continue to live with these struggles but now being able to recognise them for what they are makes things significantly easier.

Consciously or not, my artistic practice has always been a reflection and means to find expression for experience of neurodivergence, states that there are no words for - like hypervigilance, and wordlessness itself. I’ve particularly come to work with sound and the voice as a way to explore this hyper-mutability of thought, self and attention, and ideas of multi-potentiality that I see in vibrant detail.

These short voice pieces are two variations in an ongoing series of work produced using a process of granular synthesis, composing through stretching, zooming in on and unfolding the details of the voice as a material that resonates our inner human conditions.

I find it interesting to compare the visual and sonic energies of a sound, as they can reveal so much we don’t perceive and often convey seemingly different stories. Whilst some of the accompanying spectrographic translations may appear quite calm and unvacillating in their energy, others draw out much more of the complexity of what’s actually going on. I can’t help but connect these images with the experiences and misreadings of hidden disability or illness.

LOUISA LOVE is a Kent-born, Edinburgh based artist and creative producer working experimentally in sound, music, performance, sculptural practice and collaborative/curatorial activity.

Follow Louisa on Instagram at @louisarlove
louisalove.co.uk