Viewing Voices

Being in the screen and not, wandering the surface of the screen without entering it, the acousmêtre brings disequilibrium and tension. [The] acousmêtre invites the spectator to ‘go see’ and this voice can be an invitation to the loss of the self, to desire and fascination.

The original meaning of the word acousmatic ... was apparently assigned to a Pythagorean sect whose followers would listen to their Master speak behind a curtain, ..so that the sight of the speaker wouldn’t distract them from the message. ... - This interdiction against looking, which transforms the Master, God or Spirit into an acousmatic voice permeates a great number of religious traditions, ... - We find it also in the physical setup of Freudian analysis: the patient on the couch should not see the analyst, who does not look at him. - And finally, we find it in the cinema, where the voice of the acousmatic master who hides behind a door, a curtain or offscreen, is at play..

Sound ..is created at the point or in the space between. .. Sound is space between two objects. .. Sound is liminal, ..always coming from a causal objectal force but it is also the site where two things meet, a boundary space.

The voice appears to lend itself to hallucination, in particular the hallucination of power ... effected by an extension or restructuration of the body.

Rather than producing iconic representations, as does vision, [sound] functions indexically - there must be a cause, object, or event producing a sound, although sound in no way resembles it.

: the internal voice, a voice which cannot be silenced. As if the voice were the very epitome of a society that we carry with us and cannot get away from.

Because one can hear sounds behind oneself as well as those with sources inside the body (digestion, circulation, respiration, etc), two sets of terms are placed in opposition: exterior/front/sight and interior/back/hearing.

The Pleasure of Hearing

the writer's voice - outside or inside (the text)

language in interior monologue

Every emission of the voice is by its very essence ventriloquism. (Dolar)

the words are incidental, silence is the essence

Intimacy has nothing to do with a taboo. It’s just something private. I literally want to be in the middle of my actors: I don’t want that there is any distance between the two bodies, and I want to be between them. I don’t want to see their intimacy but experience it.

The moral is that when it comes to belief, there is nothing sacred about skull and skin. What makes some information count as a belief is the role it plays, and there is no reason why the relevant role can be played only from inside the body.

This chapter is an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction.

I began to schedule appointments with the voices — 8 p.m. for 20 to 30 minutes — where I agreed to “meet” and interact with them, on the condition that they didn’t impose on me during the rest of the day. This attempt at compromise meant that they got the attention they sought but in a boundaried way that limited their disruption at other times.