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PERMEATING VOICES
Lecture performance, 30 min.
Audio Leakage Community at Critical Media Lab, Basel
Academy of Art and Design FHNW, 05.04.2023
The physical phenomenon of leaking can be understood as a
process that is occurring when certain criteria are met, for
example the permeability of a material or interface through
which a fluid substance is able to pass through; a process
is necessary for many systems and life-forms to sustain and
to coexist. Used as a word though, the notion of leaking is
employed often for the exact opposite: announcing a crisis,
a disruption or pointing at the dysfunctionality of a
system. As E. Manning asks “What if the skin were not a
container? What if the skin were not a limit at which the
self begins and ends?” leakage often problematizes the idea
of (self-) containment that can lead to a re-interpretation
of its boundaries. What are then the barriers through which
permeating voices pass, which forms of containment do they
escape? Reading Anne Carson, this performance lecture seeks
to trace back the metaphorical origins of the figure of
leakage. As active fluidity that transgresses boundaries,
both physical and social, leakage has already been a
rhetorical figure in Ancient Greek literature, used
especially in relation to (female) voices and as a marker
for difference or the non-rational.
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