Sounding the Body: The Sung Voice in Contemporary Art

The sung voice has served as a critical component of contemporary art. In his Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of the Voice and the Oral Imaginary, Brandon LaBelle writes, “Is not the voice always already intervening, as a sounded body that searches for its place, one that projects forward to incite response?” Artists working in performance, video, installation, and radio have used their voices—or the voices of others—to blur the lines between visual art and music or sound art, to make political statements, to reconsider controversial and powerful histories, and as explorations of aesthetic and ethical issues, including questions of identity, among other motivations. For example, in 1970, Gilbert and George first presented themselves as “singing sculptures,” painting themselves silver and singing “Underneath the Arches” on tabletops as a means of critiquing socio-political divisions in the United Kingdom. In recent years, both Helen Cammock (2019) and Susan Philipsz (2010) have won the Turner Prize for works that privilege the woman’s voice as a means of reckoning complicated local histories. This panel seeks papers that address the use of the sung voice in contemporary art. Contributions may consider topics including the modulated voice as a tool for storytelling and advocacy; the role of the audience; amplification techniques and other digital interventions; the physicality of sound projected through the body; the recorded versus live vocal performance; the acousmatic voice; and gendered notions of the voice. Proposals from artists about past or ongoing projects incorporating voice are welcome.