My research project identifies voice as a material at the nexus of sound and meaning. Described by Mladen Dolar as an 'opening toward meaning', voice can be understood as something that supports, but is also outside of language: it is extralinguistic. Through practice-led studio research and exegetical writing, I use this conception of extralinguistic voice as a site to explore nuanced and contradictory ideas of agency and gender. Specifically, I am interested in listening to current female-identifying voices in art practice and popular culture more broadly, and through this locating an aesthetics of distraction, disengagement and what Robin James' calls a critical melancholia as a site of potential feminist noise.
hayleybrandon@gmail.com
