October 6–19, 2022
e-flux Video & Film is very pleased to present Voice Takeover, the second chapter of the six-part Takeover program curated by Julian Ross.
Voice Takeover considers the act of translation, and how the process of channeling another person’s thoughts through your own voice can feel like a possession. As words in one language haunt your mind, your mouth voices words in another language.
Featuring Su-Chen Hung’s East/West (1984–1987); Manuel Saiz’s Subtítulos: saber sin estudiar (2016); Lisa Spilliaert’s N.P (2020), streaming for two weeks from October 6–19, 2022.
Watch the films here.
Takeover
II. Voice Takeover
Thursday, October 6–Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Su-Chen Hung, East/West
1984–87, 3 minutes
East/West is a videotape with two channels of sound, based on the artist’s citizenship interview. The video image is of a mouth split in half, one half speaking English, and one half speaking Chinese. Occasionally, the two halves of the mouth come together to create a whole. The half-mouths reflect the artist’s struggle and conflict in reconciling two different cultures.
Manuel Saiz, Subtítulos: saber sin estudiar
2016, 6 minutes
Subtítulos: saber sin estudiar (Subtitles: To Know without Learning) is an intimate film in which a sequence of handmade subtitles translate, confirm, or deny what the film’s only character says while looking at the camera. Written and spoken language play along to express the difficulty of a comprehensive meaning.
Lisa Spilliaert, N.P
2020, 60 minutes
In this silent film, set during one Japanese summer, four young people discover how one book unites them. All four are fascinated by the novel N.Pby the late and mysterious Sarao Takase. The eponymous film N.P dissects the young characters’ complex web of relationships. How does a translation relate to the original? How does fiction relate to reality? And what is the nature of the often incestuous interaction between the protagonists? The strikingly beautiful colors of the summer define the mood and atmosphere of the film, turning its complex, dark heart into a serene and glowing meditation on the young and on the influence of past experiences on one’s life. Based on the novel N.P (Banana Yoshimoto, 1990).
About the program
Takeover explores the experience of letting another being—their voice, or their mind—into our own. Would we become them, or would they become us? The act of letting someone in, or of being the recipient of a possession, can involve a loss of self. But it can also be a trigger for learning, sharing, or becoming. Watching a film can operate in a similar way. In Sherlock Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton leaps into the cinema screen and enters the onscreen world. Or is it that the onscreen world has entered him? After all, we are in Keaton’s dream, which he has after falling asleep while operating the cinema’s film projector. Film can engulf us and haunt us. In questioning the limitation of understanding film experience as simply reception, Francesco Casetti suggests: “A spectator does not find herself “receiving” a film: she finds herself ‘living’ it.” (2011) Even after the screening is over and we leave the cinema, the film continues to live within us. As film viewers, we are not just a screen but also a projector, taking the film with us into the world.
Curated by Julian Ross, Takeover will unfold in six chapters, each streaming for two weeks on e-flux Video & Film between September 22 and December 15, 2022.
With films and videos by Ephraim Asili, Kurdwin Ayub, Maïder Fortuné and Annie MacDonell, Simon Fujiwara, Dora García, Gary Hill, Su-Chen Hung, Hsu Che-yu, Mako Idemitsu, Myriam Jacob-Allard, Jesse McLean, Jonna Kina, Meiro Koizumi, Natsuka Kusano, Toshio Matsumoto, Agnieszka Polska, Riar Rizaldi, Manuel Saiz, Shireen Seno, Tiffany Sia, Ghita Skali, Lisa Spilliaert, Sriwhana Spong, Pilvi Takala, Isabelle Tollenaere, Joseph Wilson, The Nest Collective.
For more information, contact program [at] e-flux.com.