Thou Shalt Not Speak: Episode I Event

In der Reihe Angewandte Praxis aus dem Zentrum Fokus Forschung

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)’.