The Voice and The Lens

Friday 13 – Sunday 15 June 2014

Whitechapel Gallery & Spitalfields Music Summer Festival

Curated by Sam Belinfante and Ed McKeon (Third Ear)

The Voice and the Lens is a festival exploring the treasures of the human voice, conjured up for our eyes through film and performance.

The voice can be seen as the technology of the human, yet we can learn about it through other less organic technologies. We talk about the voice in terms of its ‘colour’ (coloratura: to colour) and its focus; the techniques and language that we apply to light are mimicked by the movement of the mouth’s own aperture. Furthermore, it seems increasingly important to look at the voice rather than just to hear it.

From nineteenth century experiments with moving images, to early films, video, MTV, digital film, IMAX and mobile phones, the voice has played a central role in our relationship to technology. The Voice and the Lens explores how these technologies have shaped the voice, and how the voice has shaped these technologies.

Over three days, the programme features works by 55 artists, musicians and film-makers, ranging from classics to recent and brand new works. Highlights include: rare screenings of Michael Snow’s 16mm film Rameau’s Nephew and Robert Ashley’s Atalanta Strategy; Bill Viola’s Anthem; new and recent work performed by Lina Lapelyte; Loré Lixenberg’s new work Adipose where singers form an all-too-fleshy screen to tell of the opera singer who had her cake and ate it; and a special feature on teenage self-discovery curated by Artprojx featuring works by Jennifer Reeder, David Blandy & Larry Achiampong, Leo Gabin, Jessica Ann Peavy, Rashaad Newsome, Rachel Maclean and Tameka Norris.

Performers include Loré Lixenberg, Linda Hirst, Elaine Mitchener, Amy Cunningham, Maya Verlaak, Bruce McLean, Adam de la Cour, Neil Luck, Fiona Bevan, AMAE with Pier Giorgio de Pinto, Lina Lapelyte, Dante Rendle Traynor, and
Mikhail Karikis

For the full programme, see the pdf of the brochure here.

For biographical details of the featured artists, see here.