The Canōgraphy project is about capturing a singer's natural gestures while singing. This is done through "light painting", i.e., photographing, with long time exposure, the movements of luminous cuffs attached to the singer’s forearms.

Singing (Latin: canō, "I sing") and drawing (Greek: graphein, "to write, to draw") thus merge into a single action. The result is a graphic portrait of the singing body’s expressions, while the vocal artist can retain the natural posture she needs to express her art.

The negative of the photographic images shows a black graph on a white background, which is reminiscent of gestures in contemporary calligraphy.

The drawings at the bottom right are an attempt at a graphic representation of my own interoceptions, such as of tension, muscular relaxation and breathing, while singing classical pieces.

Sometimes the drawing represents a specific, precisely localized body sensation, sometimes a broader view of a larger body region, for example, the torso.

These body representations are as I experience them myself. Of course, all singers have their own relationship to their own bodies and use their muscle memory to sing with the accuracy and position that best suits them and their art.

Canōgraphy is a Spot-On-MozART project of the Mozarteum University Salzburg.