Thou Shalt Not Speak: Episode I
What is the relationship between voice-over
and image? Does a voice-over give voice to the image? Does it help the image communicate something that images cannot communicate
on their own? Common sense tells us that this is how voice-over functions. This artistic research project explores a line
of thought that runs contrary to common sense. A voice-over functions – not by giving voice to the image – but by taking voice
away. By speaking of the image, the voice-over commands the image to silence.
Thou Shalt Not
Speak brings a group of artists together in a research project that examines whether it is possible to use this paradoxical
logic against the voice-over. If the voice-over commands the image to silence, can this silence be mobilised against the voice-over?
Can it become an obstacle to speech that blocks the voice-over from articulating what the image means?
The evening
will begin with Erik Bünger and Cordula Daus introducing the artistic works they have produced as part of their research.
Bünger will present his video ‘Nature See You’. Daus will premier a brand new lecture performance that responds directly to
Bünger’s work. The event will conclude with a discussion between Bünger, Daus and curator Mihnea Mircan where they speak about
the research presented and the implications this research has for the wider questions addressed by the project.
Erik
Bünger is an artist, writer and composer whose work presents a continuous investigation into the human voice and
its paradoxical relationship to human language. His videos, lecture performances and musical compositions have been presented
at venues such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Wellcome Collection in London, The Curitiba Biennial in Brazil and the Art
Encounters Biennial in Timisoara.
Cordula Daus is a writer and artist whose work is concerned
with questions of place, sexuality, body and language. From 2010-2016 she published the journal series Toponymisches Heft
(Fantôme Verlag Berlin). Her first novel SEHR is forthcoming. Her books, lecture performances and collaborative works
have been presented at brut Vienna, the Research Pavilion #3/Venice and Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
Mihnea
Mircan is a curator currently based in Bucharest. His most recent projects are the exhibitions Landscape in a
Convex Mirror, for the 2021 edition of the Art Encounters Biennial in Timisoara (RO), and A Biography of Daphne
at ACCA in Melbourne. From 2011 he served as artistic director of Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp. This research was funded
in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [AR688]
Images credit: 'Koko le gorille qui parle
(1978)'.
