ONLINE VOICES: SLAM IN AND FROM VIRTUAL SPACE

Abstract

Abstract: With the research, we propose to debate about the artistic and political manifestation of Slam, — poetry recitation competition — as a way of producing speeches so that we can think about the effects of meaning inscribed by the voice and the body in its constitution process. We bring to analysis the Slam, produced by women, with special attention to the poetry of Slammer Kimani, both circulated on the web and produced in the digital medium. Looking at Slams produced by and for women calls us to adopt the point of view of feminist studies for a debate around gendered, racialized and classist discourses. Allied to feminist studies, the discussion is based on the materialist theory of Discourse Analysis; the theoretical perspective considers the functioning of the overlapping between voice and body, submitted to language, history and memory, inscribing in Slam a meaning beyond, or in addition to, what is said/seen. In Slam manifested on the street, the bodies face each other and affect each other, differently, in the digital one, the body is molded on the screen; while the sound materiality, resonates occupying space with a memory, the sounds that soothe and awaken us, sharpening emotions and sensations; they erupt in the public, from the street, and in the private, from the homes, as cause and effect of/for the declamation.