This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice This Is a Voice
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THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE THIS IS A VOICE EXHIBITION GUIDE 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 INTRODUCTION VOICE IS MELODIC STRAINS OF THE ORIGINAL CONTOURS THE VOICE INSTRUMENT 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 26 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 46 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 63 VOICE AND UNLOCATED PERFORMANCES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IDENTITY VOICES maas.museum/this-is-a-voice We inhabit a world full of voices. Our lives play out to a soundtrack of whispers, screams, commands, laughter and songs. A cry announces our first entry into the world, and the voice emerging from inside us acts as an indicator of physical and emotional health. The result of a sophisticated synchronisation between our respiratory and digestive systems, voices can also arise from other sources, such as spiritual guides, the subconscious or machines that mimic speech. Elusive, immaterial, yet infinitely textured, our voices can fill large spaces or be lost completely. This is a Voice traces the material quality of the voice by looking inside vocal tracts, restless minds and speech devices in order to understand its complex psychological and physiological origins. While dominant theories have traditionally focused on linguistics, here the spotlight is cast on the meaning and emotions conveyed through prosody — the patterns of rhythm, stress and intonation. Non-verbal forms of communication are emphasised, revealing the power of the voice before and beyond words. The exhibition begins with the embodied voice, its evolutionary and social origins, and ends within the contemporary realm of disembodied voices where machines talk back to us, sometimes with uncanny feeling. Along the way it explores how the unique grain of our voice locates us socially, geographically and psychologically and how the voice can be dramatically altered with treatment and training. The exhibition draws on varied experimental forms of singing and animal mimicry, including live vocalisations, and culminates with an invitation to donate your own voice to the works by Lawrence English and Matthew Herbert. 4 Designed as an acoustic journey, the exhibition brings together a wide range of works by contemporary artists and vocalists, punctuated by historical artefacts, manuscripts, and medical and anthropological research. This is a Voice is an attempt to find the shapes taken by this mysterious and flexible creature. 5 INTRODUCTION YUKULTJI NAPANGATI b about 1971, lives and works in Kiwirrkura, WA, and Kintore, NT Language group: Pintupi, NT Untitled, 2010 Synthetic polymer paint on linen Yukultji Napangati’s undulating paintings are like a sound wave in the landscape, articulating her relationship to country. Using sinuous lines to describe sand hills, water sites and the underground yunala tubers (bush bananas) of her country, the painting also expresses the notion of walking across the land and the ceremonial context of Tjukurrpa (ancestral creation beings). Song and design are tightly interconnected in Aboriginal lore, with songlines mapping the country, commemorating the creative actions of Tjukurrpa Ancestors as revealed by the marks they left behind on present-day landscapes. Courtesy of Hassall Collection. © Yukultji Napangati licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd WORKSHOP OF KARL BENDER Nef (ship-shaped table centrepiece), about 1880 Enamelled silver with coloured glass settings In mythology, sirens and mermaids, like those which decorate this nef, were believed to use their enchanting music and voices to lure sailors to shipwreck themselves on rocky shores. Once heard, the siren’s song was almost impossible to resist, but the siren would die when those who heard her song escaped. Bequest of C R Thornett, 1972. MAAS Collection Photo: Ryan Hernandez, MAAS 6 LENNOX BROWNE AND EMIL BEHNKE Voice, Song, and Speech: A Practical Guide for Singers and Speakers from the Combined View of Vocal Surgeon and Voice Trainer, 1891 This interdisciplinary study of sound production combines the science of physiology with the art of vocal production. Vocal surgeon Lennox Browne focused on how the abuse of the vocal cords leads to vocal failure and even diseases of the throat, while voice trainer Emil Behnke considered how singers and speakers can cultivate their voices through exercise. Wellcome Library, London HENRI CHOPIN I’ve Never Seen L’Hymne International, 1975 Typewriter on paper, collage Avant-garde artist, poet and musician Henri Chopin produced typewriter-poems and sound performances focusing on all possible manipulations of the human voice. Experimenting with primitive human sounds, Chopin aimed to demonstrate ‘the sensory superiority of sound as opposed to normal speech, and free man from the straightjacket of words and letters’. © The Estate of Henri Chopin, courtesy of Richard Saulton Gallery 7 INTRODUCTION DOWN BROTHERS Laryngoscope, 1890 Wire, ebonite, mirrors, glass, wood, shagreen, red velvet This instrument is designed to inspect the larynx. Spanish singer and music educator Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García invented the first laryngoscope in 1854. He is a revolutionary figure in the history of the study of the voice and was probably the first person to have observed his own vocal cords during speech production. García’s design was adapted and extensively used in a medical setting. Gift of E L Carthew, 1988. MAAS Collection ANNA BARHAM b 1974, lives and works in London, UK Liquid Consonant, 2012 HD video, 1 min loop This video presents a digitally animated head ‘speaking’ sounds. As the head rotates, the sensually modelled lips give way to a cold synthetic cavity where tongue and teeth form Greek words containing the rolled ‘r’ sound of the letter ‘rho’ prominent in Greek language describing motion, such as current, flow and whirling. Blocks of sound issue in place of words, questioning the possibility of a correspondence between sounds made by the fleshy apparatus of the mouth and their meaning. Courtesy of the artist and Arcade, London 8 LILLE MADDEN b 1995, lives and works in Sydney, NSW Language group: Gadigal and Bundjalung, NSW; Arrernte, NT; and Kalkadoon, QLD ŋalariŋi (Ours, Belonging to Us), 2017 Six-channel audio installation, 5:04 min This contemporary sound work created by Gadigal woman Lille Madden, in collaboration with Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri artist Jonathan Jones, is an example of the important work being done to reclaim Indigenous languages in Australia. Visitors can hear Madden singing in the Sydney language as it was shared by a young Aboriginal woman named Patygerang and documented by Lieutenant William Dawes from 1790 to 1791. Developed in consultation with Gadigal Elder Charles Madden; sound design by Luke Mynott, Sonar Sound. Courtesy of Lille Madden and Jonathan Jones 9 ICE VOICE VOICE VOI S IS IS IS IS IS IS THE THE THE THE THE IGINAL ORIGINAL ORI ENT INSTRUMENT INST ‘Voice is the Original Instrument’ looks at prosody and rhythm ICE VOICE VOICE VOI to examine a theory suggested by several disciplines, from anthropology to musicology: that the flexible human voice originally evolved for singing and social bonding rather than for information exchange. As early hominin groups (the direct ancestors of modern humans) became larger and physical grooming was no longer an efficient form of bonding, the voice kept individuals emotionally connected S IS IS IS IS IS IS by creating alliances and group dynamics. An increased range and diversity of vocalisations were made possible by bipedalism (walking upright on two legs) and the reformulations of the larynx, while changes in facial anatomy enhanced the capacity for emotional expression. Early humans would perform ‘vocal mobbing’ by chorusing and synchronising their voices in order to appear larger in number to predators. Over the past half a million years, and from the beginning of our own species, Homo sapiens, modern language developed in tandem with these singing THE THE THE THE THE practices and dramatic mimicry of animal sounds for different purposes, including ritualistic ceremonies.