Voice

VOICE

Artists: 
Anna Baumgart, Wojciech Bąkowski, Miron Białoszewski, Wojciech Bruszewski, Erik Bünger,Grzegorz Drozd and Alicja Łukasiak (ZOR), Omer Fast, Karolina Freino, Diamanda Galas,
Piotr Grabowski, Susan Hiller, Mikhail Karikis, Ragnar Kjartansson, Gil Kuno, Uriel Orlow,
Laura Pawela, Józef Robakowski, Weronika Szczawińska, Patryk Zakrocki


A preview of the exhibition for the public of Warsaw Gallery Weekend: September 26 - 28, 2014 
Curatorial tour for the public: September 27, 2014 at 7.00 p.m. 
Opening of the exhibition: September 29, 2014 at 6 p.m.
On view through: January 4, 2015
 
Curatorial Team: 
Project’s curator: Stach Szabłowski, Assistant curator: Zuzanna Rutkowska
"Białoszewski for Listening" project: Maciej Byliniak 
Films programme: Michał Matuszewski, Grzegorz Kurek
Ujazdowski Castle Choir: Sean Palmer, Marcin Steczkowski
Graphic Design: Monika Zawadzki
 

GŁOS / VOICE - zwiastun / trailer from CSW TV.

VOICE is an interdisciplinary artistic project devoted to the phenomenon of the human voice – an essential tool of communication and expression, through which we articulate all kinds of messages and express emotions. The project’s underlying idea is to listen to the artists’ voices, but also to create conditions where the recipient will be able find their own voice, discover his corporeal nature, political power, form, possibilities, and meanings. The aim of the exhibition and its accompanying events is to propose a collection of experiences conducive to reflection on the expanse of space defined by voice, extending from the articulation of discourse to unintelligible screaming.

Exhibition
The exhibition is comprised of videos as well as sound installations created by visual artists and by artists operating on the fringe of cinema, art, and music. Voice is the theme, a basic medium of communication and an essential means of expression. The featured works are construed as an audiovisual experience and a narrative playing out in space through which the spectator/listener is led by various voices.

"Białoszewski for Listening" 
"Poetry attains its full existence when it is recited," Białoszewski argued, and for him the model of poetic efficacy and vitality was oral poetry, melic, passed from mouth to mouth. The exhibition VOICE features a gallery version of the project "Białoszewski for Listening," which is devoted to archival recordings of the poet as well as their contemporary interpretations and artistic remixes. Visitors will be able to hear a radio drama realized on the basis of recordings left by the author of "Chamowo," come to know original recordings of his poems, as well as co-create the exhibition by recording their own readings of Miron Białoszewski’s texts.

Ujazdowski Castle Choir 
Within the frames of Voice at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle, a choir will be formed comprising of the CCA Ujazdowski Castle’s personnel - representing various professions and specializations: from technicians and carpenters, through office workers, to art historians and educators. The choir’s purpose will be to articulate the "voice of the institution," the latter being construed here as a community of its employees, both those who function in the spotlight (e.g. the curators) and those who usually remain in the background, remaining invisible and inaudible to the gallery goers.

Film Programme  
The project VOICE is partially composed of a film program - a series of projections combined with lectures, panels, talks with film experts, philosophers and psychoanalysts. As a cinema, inherently anthropocentric, we will present and addresses the problem of the human voice, both as a subject, as well as one of the basic components of the medium itself. Was the transition from silent films to "sound films" a natural way for the development of film, or perhaps the death of well-evolving cinematography? What role do voice-overs and dubbing play? Besides looking at the historical aspect of film, we’ll also look at the process of filmmaking from the perspective of the voice. However, the programme does not limit itself to mise-en-abîme. We will show how cinema problematizes the political dimension of voice, from voice as an instrument of power to a voice that has been taken away. There will also be a psychological and psychoanalytic perspective – of the voice as something corporeal and at the same time separate from the body, from a woman’s scream in a horror to the demonic puppets of ventriloquists. Factored into the programme are both Hollywood classics as well as experimental films, to say nothing of the most interesting films presented at festival in recent years. Each screening will be accompanied by an introduction given by a special guest.

Detailed Programme, KINO.LAB:
9 October - "Singin' in the Rain", directed by Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, USA 1952 
23 October - "Berberian Sound Studio", directed by Peter Strickland, UK 2012 
13 November - "Farinelli", directed by Gérard Corbiau, France, Italy, Belgium 1994 
27 November - "Johnny Got His Gun", directed by Dalton Trumbo, USA 1971 
3 December - "Compliance", directed by Craig Zobel, USA 2012 
18 December - "The Tribe", directed by Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, Ukraine 2014


The program of accompanying events includes artists’ talk meetings with selected project participants (amongst others, Wojciech Bąkowski, Karolina Freino, Mikhail Karikis, Erik Bünger) and lectures on physiology, cultural aspects of the human voice, and the art of rhetoric.

October 27 at 6 p.m., KINO.LAB
Karolina Freino "Time and Place", moderation: Stach Szabłowski

November 6 at 8 p.m., KINO.LAB
Wojciech Bąkowski "Helping With Words While Listening to Sounds" , moderation: Stach Szabłowski

November 14 at 6 p.m., space of the exhibition VOICE 
Mikhail Karikis "102 years out of synch", visual performance and meeting with the Artis