Protect Your Domain Name was commissioned by the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication for a conference on business communication. Poet Ava Haymon collaborated with the conception of the work, contributing found techno-babble from the World Wide Web, and excerpts from her poem “The Word”, which parodies the use and misuse of language for religious and political discourse. Protect Your Domain Name raises the issues of identity and anonymity on the internet, and the embodiment and manipulation of meaning within words that are both conversant and unspeakable.

The music/sound design of the piece took recitations by Ms. Haymon of the found techno-babble and recomposed their temporal, spectral and pitch contours. The transformations were done independent of one another and then assembled in collaboration with animator Michael Daugherty. The interaction between sound and image was organically derived through a regular interchange between artist and composer. All of the sounds were derived from those recordings.

2001

Michael Daugherty - video;
Ava Leavell Haymon - text