Alicia Jeannin
Space and Speech artist
QUAND ILS PARLENT
WHEN THEY SPEAK
This website is (always) under construction...
This website is dedicated to ongoing research-based projects connected between them by a same topic : spoken language.
Quand ils parlent Matrices
"Le second postulat contre lequel je me bats c'est, si vous voulez, le postulat que les paroles c'est du vent; que les paroles, ça n'existe pas, que ça
n'a presque pas de consistance; que les paroles c'est une sorte d'écume sur l'océan de l'histoire; ou encore que les paroles ce n'est rien de plus que le reflet transitoire, fragile, précaire,
immédiatement effacé de choses qui elles, sont sérieuses et solides, et qui ne sont pas des paroles.
Or, ce que je voudrais montrer, c'est que les hommes font quelque chose quand ils parlent..."
“The second postulate I fight is, if you will, the postulate that speaking is like the wind; that speaking doesn't exist, that it has almost no substance, that
speaking is a sort of foam on the ocean of history; or perhaps that speaking is nothing more than the transitory, fragile, precarious reflection, immediately erased, of things which are serious
and solid, and which are not speaking.
Therefore, what I would like to show, is that men do something when they speak...”
Michel Foucault, Radio Interview, about The archeology of knowledge, France Culture, 02-05-1969
As an introduction
To speak, from intimacy to politics
Parler, de l'intime au politique
We speak.
Who is this "we" in which "I" is included?
Human beings...?
Some had made language the characteristic of (hu)man.
This turned out to be inaccurate.
Beings speak.
We speak.
And "we" speak about us.
Before our birth and after our death, beings around us spoke and will speak, about us and many other things.
We are formed, as Judith Butler would say, in language.
Our brain and entire body are predestined for the acquisition of this ability, which will soon be a necessity. Vital. Our
voice is, from the very first minute, what will provide us with food, care, attention.
Our voice is unique. Totally and uniquely our own. Yet our voice is formed by others: by parents, teachers, friends or enemies; by languages, accents, accidents,
experiences, dreams, or fears.
Our inner voice comes from outside.
So what makes that it is an "I" speaking when we speak?
What do we do with the voice we've been gifted?
What intimate thoughts inhabit this voice?
What words and songs make it vibrate?
How do I shape it?
How do I send it back to the world?
Where do I carry it?
For whom ?
For what reason?