SELKIE

In British folklore, the Selkie is a creature of transformation. She sheds her seal skin as she emerges from the sea, assuming human form for fleeting moments.  Yet she is fragile: if her skin is stolen, she can never return to the water, her home. The myth speaks of metamorphosis, unravelling thresholds between body and place.

This work pulls at those threads. Original Old English poetry intertwines with folksong and electronic processing, dissolving into imaginary water spaces discovered in real time. These spaces reference physical environments in which meditation is found. Through the interplay of voice, technology, and slow movements, the performance moves through states of flux. 

The Selkie Suit is a wearable musical interface built through processes of crafting, where repetition itself became a path toward catharsis. All code for the gesture-tracking and granular synthesiser was written in C++ and Max/MSP in the creation of this instrument. In performance, the garment is not merely costume, but collaborator: its loose-fit fluidity shapes the sound world alongside my own movement. From this, voice becomes another kind of skin: enveloping, layered, and reclaimed.