this blog is to externally express an internal experience. though i have tried, i have no logic or language for my experience

angelene • schizophrenic • lesbian new account 12.31.25 (gougeddoll terminated)

ventriloquist dummies are cool conceptually because they speak on abstract concepts of voice, identity, agency… i do immediately think of kleist in his work “on the marionette theatre” where he argues that puppets possess a grace we have lost

a few other things come to mind for me

the dummy acts as a double / externalization for the shadow self. the dummy can say what it is the performer can’t… so it can perform aggression, desire, flirtatiousness, shame, unfiltered honesty. that sort of goes back to this concept of grace, the dummy isn’t burdened by human self-consciousness.

in a way a dummy acts as communication technology, speech becomes detachable, it becomes an object

i also think of kittler’s writing on media (the gramophone, telephones, radio, tv) becoming true speakers. the dummy acts as a medium for a detached voice. it seems like the voice would be proof that someone is present, that’s there’s a real person behind it…the ventriloquist breaks this illusion. the voice is there but it belongs elsewhere. so, media does this too. voice recordings, online video formats for example… they are a voice detached from the body, until the voice becomes an entity of its own. (i also think of the telephone book by avital ronell) the dummy IS an early media technology, shows that our “voice” is never as securely attached to single speaker as we think. so instead of media carrying our voices, kittler turns this around and ask, how does media change our voice? the performer shapes the medium, the medium shapes the performer. the dummy, technology reorganizes human beings. sorry if this doesn’t make sense - basically, media/the medium changes the conditions under which the voice can exist. so we think of the performer “possessing” the dummy but in a way, the dummy actually possesses the performer. media is like this, all media in a way, is ventriloquial. media redistributes agency, freed from self-consciousness. certain personalities/confessions/conflict can only form through the medium/media. the dummy, in this way, is alive.