Anamnesis: Pre-Existence and the Echo of Return — A Research-Creation Study in Spoken Word Radio Theatre and Prenatal Sound Phenomenology

Abstract

This research-creation study introduces and contextualizes the three-act audio artifact Anamnesis: Pre-Existence, offering an autoethnographic and phenomenological investigation into the threshold between pre-linguistic states of consciousness and the symbolic, name-driven reality of post-natal existence. Grounded in Plato’s doctrine of anamnesis, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Chion’s acousmatic sound theory, the paper frames the artistic performance as a retrospective hermeneutic reconstruction rather than a literal embryological claim. Building upon prior research in spatial pre-musical sound, prenatal acoustic modules, multisensory light-sound restoration, and non-visual cinema (Freedman, 2025), this work operationalizes performative radio-theatre to explore the recovery of non-dual consciousness through aesthetic experience. Act I (Pre-Existence: The Descent and Farewell) models the ontological transition from an undifferentiated acoustic continuum to the entry into the Symbolic order, conceptualizing the 'first breath' as an existential farewell to pre-linguistic origin. Act II (Anamnesis: Memory of Art) examines musical and artistic recognition as a phenomenological mechanism for retrieving fragments of pre-verbal memory, contrasting semantic explanation with musical gathering. Act III (Anamnesis: The Echo of Return) functions as a non-verbal instrumental synthesis; utilizing the continuous acoustic pressure of a cathedral pipe organ, modulated bass clarinet, atonal cello swells, and harmonic modulations, it performatively resolves the tension between speech and primordial silence. The paper details the research-creation methodology, defines the study's interpretive scope, and demonstrates its live digital synthesis within the interactive platform Metabook (metabook.freedanman.com).