Attuning to voice
6.30-8.30pm | July 2 2019 | Nottingham Contemporary
This Voicing the Political session places Lis Rhodes’ 2004 film, Riff (18’) in dialogue with Laure Prouvost’s 2013 film, Swallow (12’) in order to open a discussion on how we can become attuned to the operation of the human voice as we encounter it in art and beyond. A talk by Eleni Ikon (details below) will track the figure of ‘Her Voice’ across political, aesthetic and philosophical domains. Sarah Hayden will introduce a brief discussion of the interaction between breath, the body, phrasing and framing in Riff and Swallow before leading a workshop designed to enhance our attentiveness to the materiality of the speaking voice.
Guest Talk by Eleni Ikon: Her Voice
The voice can assume almost any shape, sculpted both by body and technology but reducible to neither. From the mythical voices of the Sirens and the oral histories of funeral lamentation; to the vocal experiments of contemporary composers and performers, and the ubiquitous use of automated voices across the public and private realms; the female-sounding voice continuously invokes new philosophical, political and aesthetic challenges, some of which will be addressed in this talk.
About Eleni Ikon:
Eleni Ikon is Senior Tutor (Research) in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art in London. Her research is situated at the intersection between digital media, critical theory and sound art practice. Her writings and practice deal with both the known and unknown impact of new technologies on culture, aesthetics and politics, investigated through the staging of transdisciplinary encounters. She is author of The Rhythmic Event, Art, Media, and the Sonic (MIT Press, 2014), member of the art collective AUDINT, and editor of the Media Philosophy series (Rowman & Littlefield International).
Voicing the Political invites you to explore the politics of voice and voicing. Thinking beyond the equation of political agency with ‘having a voice’, these public events address vocality as a phenomenon at the confluence of embodiment and technicity, the individual and the collective, interior and exterior, sound and sense. The format for each session will comprise a mix of screenings, workshops, talks, collective reading activities, and live listening experiments. In this series, we will work together to interrogate the politics of how voice is used, represented, imagined and heard.
These sessions may be of particular interest to writers and artists whose work encompasses vocal performance, textual materiality and language-driven practices.
All are very welcome to join the conversation. To book please email Mercè at merce@nottinghamcontemporary.org
