Faces of Voice

2022

Collaboration: Nova Gallery

Curatorial text: Antonela Solenički

Foto: Sanja Bistričić

In her work Faces of Voice, the artist Neža Knez builds on her older eponymous work in which she explored the relationship between body language, primarily facial expressions and voice. By recording people slowly and clearly pronouncing the Slovene alphabet, something familiar to them, something close and common, she wanted to see what happens when one tries to pronounce the alphabet — something people usually pronounce automatically — more consciously, focusing on the regularity of pronunciation. In this new work, an eight-channel sound installation, the artist omits the image and thus shifts the focus from facial expressions to the articulation of voices, allowing us to create our own mental images of people pronouncing the alphabet. Each person pronounces the letters in their own rhythm, and the initially harmonized sounds melt into a harmonic cacophony, inviting us to come closer to each speaker to discern individual voices.

Excerpt from a text by [Antonela Solenički]

8 canal sound installation