Lingua Membra is a public somatic language for responding to calamity. Its somatic procedure is built around the scream because its Acoustic Roughness gives it an exceptional force of alarm: it can arrest attention before words are understood and carry recognisable affect across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Participants choose a date connected to a calamity and translate its digits into a sequence of counted screams (see: Numerical Outcry) or adapted silent outcries (see: Silent ⭘). Each digit from 1 to 9 determines the number of outcries. In sounded execution, zero is marked by a Muffled Hum; in silent execution, it is marked with closed lips and an agreed visible or tactile pulse. Five cycles of breathing ordinarily separate one digit from the next, performed together when more than one participant takes part (see: Simultaneous Breathing), while a bodily movement separates chronological segments such as day, month and year (see: Kinetic Pivot). The resulting coded sequence (see: Somatic Script) may be enacted in public or, where public exposure would create risk, in a closed or otherwise protected space and documented for later sharing. Alone or with others, participants follow the same code, coordinating their breathing, outcries and movements when more than one person takes part. The documentation can then be shared through the project’s common archive and connective layer, the Resonance Commons, and answered elsewhere by others (see: Answering), allowing the same calamity to be carried into further executions without requiring a common spoken language.

USE LINGUA MEMBRA

No application or permission is required.

1. Choose the calamity.
Identify the event, condition or ongoing calamity you want to address, and determine the date or temporal structure connected to it.

2. Decide whether to act alone or with others.
The sequence can be performed by one person or by several people in a safe and accessible formation. See formations.

3. Generate the Somatic Script.
Enter the date in the Somatic Script Generator to obtain the sequence of outcries, breaths and movements.
Learn the complete Somatic Vocal Code

4. Execute it.
Perform the sequence, adapting voice, breath, movement and bodily connection where required for safety, disability, bodily capacity or local conditions.

5. Document it only where safe and consensual.
Documentation is optional. Do not expose identities, voices or locations where doing so could create risk.

6. Share or answer.
Where safe and consensual, share the documentation publicly using #LinguaMembra, or send it directly to us through the contact details on this site. All documentation shared in either way is gathered in the Resonance Commons, where executions, Calls for Resonance and Answering are connected across distance. You may also issue a Call for Resonance or answer an existing call through another execution.

For questions, documentation or a Call for Resonance, contact Lingua Membra at LinguaMembra@gmail.com.