ACTS OF VOICING. ON THE POETICS AND POLITICS OF THE VOICE

The voice is a phenomenon that is difficult to apprehend. While vision and hearing are clearly associated with sense organs such as the eye and the ear, the voice consists of the fleeting interaction of multiple organs, such as the lungs, the vocal chords, the tongue, and the gums. It is both inside and outside the body, both immaterial and of considerable social and political substance. Things are given names, people found guilty, or couples pronounced man and wife by means of the voice. Acts of Voicing addresses the aesthetic, performative, and political importance of the voice from the perspective of visual art, dance, performance, and theory. It deals with both the resistive as well as the disciplined voice, with voices that are heard and those that are not. Light is shed on the struggle for making ones voice heard as well as the act of silencing other voices.