i turn over the pictures of my voice in my head

How strenuous it is to speak! Particularly in a video intended to be seen from the outside! In VALIE EXPORT´s video, the inside is turned to the outside. This does not happen by itself, it has to be forced. The voice has to come from a larynx displayed from the inside out. For this, a device is needed. How strenuous it is to let the voice out! Often, exertion comes from things and beings that should not be let out. Wild animals? The voice is the wild animal, which should be restrained from the outside world, but the struggle here is the eruption. The eruption of the voice-volcano. This voice is not silent. The purpose of this device is to hold back the voice so that it can be studied; so the active vocal chords can be observed. But there the voice, suddenly, forces itself out through an opening, which does not want to be opened! The outside is there, please, voice, come out! It can always come out, but only through this small device, which lays bare the vocal labia, lapped around by saliva, by juices - a woman´s only means of representation - something fluid, which otherwise you rarely get to see (therefore the more curious we are! Immediately you want to look inside. Please - go ahead!). The voice obtains consciousness through this laryngoscope, and can make essential statements such as she: speaks. The larynx is the emergence, in fact the permitting of emergence. Yes, that´s what it´s here for! It lets out what should be confined: the voice, in a language which someone, anyone must understand, yes, must! Otherwise there is no speech and the voice is of no use; so speak up, speech! From constant sealing: let it out and speak up! Leaving cover behind only to discover a pointed rifle. The voice has to leave cover; needing a device to sound things out to separate the voice from its home, the larynx, and to chase it off. The voice is forced to do something, which it likes to do anyway. This is the biggest effort: to do something that is permitted, but intrinsically separated from the world. It forges its path before it is entirely lost.

(Excerpt from Elfriede Jelinek´s text "Intolerated, impatient sealing (oh, voice!)")


"The rebellious voice, the split voice.
The voice is suture, the voice is seam, the voice is cut, the voice is tear, the voice is my identity, it is not body or spirit, it is not language or image, it is sign, it is a sign of the images, it is a sign of sensuality. It is a sign of symbols, it is boundary. It speaks the "split body," it is hidden in the clothing of the body, it is always somewhere else. The breath of life is its source."

(VALIE EXPORT: Segment from the spoken text)


That the vocal organs visually rhyme with female genitalia, that when they are in use, they create a fascinating flow of movement and change, makes this work a compelling new iteration by an artist who has given voice to her female body through a myriad of frames.

(Maureen Turim)