[-empyre-] Re: voices , genders and other matters empyre Digest, Vol 4, Issue 16

[hazel smith <hazel.smith@canberra.edu.au>]

Hi Alan

Thanks. I'm also interested in multidimensional and multidirectional
projections of the voice into space  create their own kinds of cultural
geographies.  If at times a voice seems to be situated in a particular
llocality, at other times it may seem to belong to several locales at once;
to project into non-specific, virtual or imagined spaces; or criss-cross
between the real and the imagined.  The apparent relationship between the
voice and place is influenced by a number of different factors including
semantics and accent.  But non-semantic (and often technologically induced)
elements such as dynamics, pitch changes, and reverberation of the voice,
may be particularly important in seeming to evoke spaces which are less
definite and immediately culturally recognisable.

Hazel


>
>What's fascinating about the voice is the relative phenomenology it
>engenders. I've written about this primarily in relationship to Vito
>Acconci's early work - the voice is almost always internalized in
>the listener, since the directional aspects are relatively fuzzy, and
>the mapping of voice onto landscape is problematic. Voice through
>stereo or binaural is internalized; beat frequencies and resonances
>in a room map the architecture in unexpected ways. You can even use
>wolf notes on a violin to map its internal structure.
>
>The voice almost always seems to come from within, even in the form
>of a call - the langscape liquidifies around it.
>
>There are also issues of maternality, I think, at work here - which
>is why the female voice has been so focused upon perhaps. I think
>of Kristeva's chora with its ruptured vocalization, stutterings,
>etc. - In any case, the voice tends to bend the image - it extends
>outwards from it. Even with a single screen, the voice is messy -
>there may be multiple speakers, the voice floods out from them, and
>stereo or multi-channel presentations also tear the voice from the
>image which, at least at its origin, is either circular or recti-
>linear (spotlight or frame/screen).
>
>In general I tend to think of sound as 'second-person,' partly
>internalized, partly external - and the visual register as primarily
>third-person - 'out there,' defined. From this, we might also
>think of heat/touch as first/person, sensed on or within the body -
>
>- Alan
>
>http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/
>http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
>Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
>finger sondheim@panix.com
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 4
>Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 11:44:55 -0700
>From: Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com>
>Subject: [-empyre-] voice
>To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>Message-ID: <NFBBJIJOOLLMOMMACKAFKEEBFCAA.jim@vispo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252
>
>Voice (and razor blade):
>
>GREGORY WHITEHEAD
>http://www.ubu.com/sound/whitehead01.html
>http://www.ubu.com/sound/whitehead03.html
>
>PAUL GREEN
>http://www.culturecourt.com/Audio/PG/PGaudio.htm
>in particular, check out "The Gestalt Bunker" and "Directions to the Dead End"
>
>HELEN THORINGTON
>http://new-radio.org/helen/sound.html
>
>NEW AMERICAN RADIO
>http://www.somewhere.org/NAR/NAR_home.htm
>
>ja
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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>empyre mailing list
>empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>End of empyre Digest, Vol 4, Issue 16
>*************************************




Dr. Hazel Smith
Senior Research Fellow
School of Creative Communication
Deputy Director
University of Canberra Centre for Writing
http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/writing
Editor of Inflect http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/inflect
University of Canberra
ACT 2601
phone 6201 5940
More about my creative work at
www.australysis.com