In the sound piece, Revir Noom, Moon River’s longing, iconic promise flows in a melancholy reverse tide. The lyrics of the song, portraying a yearning for escape and transformation, a dream of self-determination, of
escaping one's original nature (as embodied and fulfilled by Holly in Truman Capote’s "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), here retain a memory of their original narrative while torn from it in a digital reworking. A bit of dialogue
and the song, sung by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie based on the novella, are re-recorded backwards with minimal processing. By this simple process, the song makes a complete transformation: with its own distinct melody,
arrangement, language and meaning - a current pulling forward (now dragging backward) as the piece ends with Holly (or Lula Mae) not so much singing as swallowing her own words.
The digitally altered sounds, though unrecognizable as the words they once were and exposing a kind of alienation (of the words from their meaning, the words from themselves, as Holly from Lula Mae), form a language at once
hermetic and intelligible through their collective role making up the whole and through their familiarity: breath, sighs, sounds with a particular cadence. It is particularly effective I believe for the themes and the sounds
in the piece to be expressed by a woman. The interrupted, cut short, detached bits of the stories of the novella and film and song in some sense reflect a detachment of women's voices and the modes of expression traditionally
expected or not expected of them – to varying degrees they were not expected to have anything intelligible or of import to say, believed not to have the same capacity to contribute to discourse, literature or political
speech as men, women's voices were heard in hushed tones (like the lull of lullabies), in sighs and hums and moans, gasping or singing, breath for comfort. The bits of words in the piece are moving for what they imply and
for their familiarity - in these ways, in spite of and through their electronic obliterations, the words and their expressions are clear.
About the Artist
Hilda Daniel is an artist based in New York City. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals in New York, London, Berlin, Oslo, Dublin and other cities in Europe, US, Canada and Mexico, recently in the ELO2022
Media Festival Exhibition in Italy, the International Sound and Film Music Festival, the 37 Kasseller DokFest, as a triple award winner in LAIFF Luis Bunuel Memorial Film Fest, a double Semi-Finalist in the AltFF festival
and Finalist in the Sophia Queer Forum International Video Festival, in Peripheries at the Glucksman Gallery in Cork (ELO 2019), and elsewhere; included as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s curated SoundCloud site
for its exhibition on John Cage’s 4’33”; in screenings at the Anthology Film Archives; and in curated sound events and symposia at The British Library, Lincoln Center Library for Performing Arts, Goldsmiths University,
Rathmines Library, and the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Performance Art Journal, New Art Examiner and other publications.
