HIS MASTER'S VOICE: On Voice and Language

HIS MASTER'S VOICE: On Voice and Language is an exhibition on the performativity of voice and language, the inauthenticity and uncanniness of speaking, voice as a political speech act, and language as performative utterance.

We are acting through language – but how does language act through us? The exhibition HIS MASTER'S VOICE: On Voice and Language addresses the uncanny, irritating or comical moments produced by the human voice and language. This selection of performances, videos and web projects lets spectators experience the emotional, social and political potential of the voice. How is the voice connected to the body and identity of the individual? What happens when the spoken word detaches itself from the speaker, the text from its meaning, the sound from the image? What if the voice no longer belongs to the body from which it emanates? The artists in this exhibition listen to ventriloquists and voice-over artists as well as propagandists and preachers. They explore and re-enact historic and contemporary speech acts, probing the emotional and spiritual effect of the vocal power and word games, and playing with shifts of meaning and identity. While doing so, they also experiment with the various media used to record, reproduce or silence the voice.

Additional materials (books, film extracts, videos, quotations, etc.) addressing and commenting upon the notion of the performativity of the voice, speech and language will be shown alongside with the 28 works in the exhibition. These additional materials will be presented in six display cabinets.

Design: labor b designbüro, Dortmund

Project-related press work:

Funded by:

Kunststiftung NRW

Kindly supported by:

Mediapartner: