Possibilities of amplification (through distortions, creating spaces, listening, streaming, amplifying? practices explored in my thesis) Draw parallels with the examples mentioned in the thesis and my work right now
This research seeks to explore what does female voice reveal, when exists in performative speech acts, that by definition make things happen and create a space for them. What democratic processes does it suggest? My ongoing research lead me to the public forums, speech, and the technologies that facilitate them, from a feminist perspective. This thesis is a series of three essays which relate to the female voice, collective voice and their mediation. They address the voice as a feminist tool for communicating, and an object of presence and inhabiting space. Historically, some modes of address have been marginalized and shut out of the public domain. The separation between private and public space has played an important role as it is related to gender separation. The collective voice is marginalized under the realm of the patriarchal individualistic society. The female voice is part of it. The texts deal particularly with the voice as a medium for collective practices. I will investigate this in further detail in *The Monstrosity of the Female Voice*. This collective vocalization affords the amplification and multiplication either with the aid of technology or embodied practices that refuses dominant ways of establishing presence and dialogue. Its mediation takes advantage of the technologies that emerge with an agonistic attitude, and resembles 'second orality'- a concept that Walter Ong has developed. I will investigate this in further detail in *Multiplication vis a vis Amplification*. In our democracy there is a fear of 'ugly' modes of address which are connected to the female body- blood, birth, death, mourning- and other dark aspects and passions that are perceived as threatening to society. These forms of vocalization are excluded from a public discourse which since antiquity have centered on “self-control” and “reason”. Such things are seen to create noise and disorder and "have to be kept" silent according to the patriarchal norms. But alternative mediums and forms of communication have been developed against this. I will investigate this in further detail in *Transmitting Ugly Things*.\
In recent years my concern has been with the presence of the female voice in public. During my previous studies I came to realize how my gendered body had been silenced or marginalized through slight gestures from male figures or institutional powers. By also observing women in their roles as members of my family, teachers, workers and immigrant neighbors of my youth, I discovered different types of marginalization and silencing. Examples would be women working at home, taking care of everything in the family and neglecting their own desires and interests, men interrupting them when articulating arguments in a political or formal dialogue and routinely underestimating their knowledge. The mediation of their voices and the way they became present, active participants and visible in public spaces and spheres became one of my principle interests. My past artistic projects reflected and responded to that concern while I worked with voice and sound which, as forms of art, are underestimated in the context of Western visual culture. As this text will outline, they are forms connected to irrational attitudes and oral cultures. The sound of voices reveals hidden suppressed aspects and subjectivities. Because of its temporariness, non-linearity, invisibility and border-less character sound can exist and travel within multiple dimensions of spaces simultaneously, creating bonds between them. Throughout history, oral cultures, by being based on vocal expression, differ from more recently established literate cultures in that they embrace the collective sharing of knowledge. More specifically they create "personality structures that in certain ways are more communal and externalized, and less introspective than those common among literates" (Ong, 2002, pg. 67). In recent times, feminists have included and embraced voice in their practices because there is a uniqueness in it, that embodies the speakers and their personal stories, while connecting the present listeners. Together with these concerns, about the exclusion of women’s voices, I also experienced a gender-based differentiation between amateur and expert knowledge, particularly when approaching telecommunication networks and technologies, with the intention of learning to build and use them for my artistch practice. This division of labor goes together with the gender exclusion. I quickly found out that I was not alone in this regard. The volunteers of an activist collective, Prometheus, expressed similar concerns in the construction of a radio station:
Even though voice is a medium for collective practice, as Walter Ong argues in his book *Orality and Literacy*, it is situated in a context that tends towards social binary structures and oppositions, that restrict its possibilities. Nevertheless the nature of voice and its capablities overpass these boundaries beyond gender, spatial, power, technological binaries. This research seeks to unravel these possibilities of voice, with the intention to explore democratic ways of communication that embraces excluded forms of address. My ongoing research lead me to the public forums, speech, and the technologies that facilitate them, from a feminist perspective. This thesis is a series of three essays which relate to the female voices, collective voices and their mediation. They address the voice as a feminist tool for communicating, and an object of presence and inhabiting space. Historically, some modes of address have been marginalized and shut out of the public domain. The separation between private and public space has played an important role as it is related to gender separation. The collective voice is marginalized under the realm of the patriarchal individualistic society. The female voices is part of it. The texts deal particularly with the voice as a medium for collective practices. I will investigate this in further detail in *The Monstrosity of the female voices*. This collective vocalization affords the amplification and multiplication either with the aid of technology or embodied practices that refuses dominant ways of establishing presence and dialogue. Its mediation takes advantage of the technologies that emerge with an agonistic attitude, and resembles 'second orality'- a concept that Walter Ong has developed. I will investigate this in further detail in *Multiplication vis a vis Amplification*. In our democracy there is a fear of 'ugly' modes of address which are connected to the female body- blood, birth, death, mourning- and other dark aspects and passions that are perceived as threatening to society. These forms of vocalization are excluded from a public discourse which since antiquity have centered on “self-control” and “reason”. Such things are seen to create noise and disorder and "have to be kept" silent according to the patriarchal norms. But alternative mediums and forms of communication have been developed against this. I will investigate this in further detail in *Transmitting Ugly Things*.\
In recent years my concern has been with the presence of the female voices in public. During my previous studies I came to realize how my gendered body had been silenced or marginalized through slight gestures from male figures or institutional powers. By also observing women in their roles as members of my family, teachers, workers and immigrant neighbors of my youth, I discovered different types of marginalization and silencing. Examples would be women working at home, taking care of everything in the family and neglecting their own desires and interests, men interrupting them when articulating arguments in a political or formal dialogue and routinely underestimating their knowledge. The mediation of their voices and the way they became present, active participants and visible in public spaces and spheres became one of my principle interests. My past artistic projects reflected and responded to that concern while I worked with voice and sound which, as forms of art, are underestimated in the context of Western visual culture. As this text will outline, they are forms connected to irrational attitudes and oral cultures. The sound of voices reveals hidden suppressed aspects and subjectivities. Because of its temporariness, non-linearity, invisibility and border-less character sound can exist and travel within multiple dimensions of spaces simultaneously, creating bonds between them. Throughout history, oral cultures, by being based on vocal expression, differ from more recently established literate cultures in that they embrace the collective sharing of knowledge. More specifically they create "personality structures that in certain ways are more communal and externalized, and less introspective than those common among literates" (Ong, 2002, pg. 67). In recent times, feminists have included and embraced voice in their practices because there is a uniqueness in it, that embodies the speakers and their personal stories, while connecting the present listeners. Together with these concerns, about the exclusion of women’s voices, I also experienced a gender-based differentiation between amateur and expert knowledge, particularly when approaching telecommunication networks and technologies, with the intention of learning to build and use them for my artistch practice. This division of labor goes together with the gender exclusion. I quickly found out that I was not alone in this regard. The volunteers of an activist collective, Prometheus, expressed similar concerns in the construction of a radio station:
>"The radio activists presented the work of soldering a transmitter, tuning an antenna, and producing a news program or governing a radio station to be accessible to all. Nevertheless, they were conscious of patterned gaps in their organization and volunteer base: men were more likely than women to know how to build electronics, to be excited by tinkering, and to have the know-how to teach neophytes.This troubled the activists"(Dunbar-Hester, pg. 53-54).
In one of my projects, *Sound Acts in Victoria Square* I 'inserted' the recorded sounds of women’s voices into existing conversations at a public square in Athens that was male dominated. Most of the frequenters were immigrants and refugees from different periods of migration to Greece. They had come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Albania, Georgia, Russia and other countries. The gender bias and the way they used the public space differed according to their country of origin. However, it was common that many of the young women visiting the square were just passers-by with shopping bags or kids in tow. The men, on the other hand, were hung out with their friends, occupying many spots of the square for hours. My intervention was like so; first, I realized and recorded conversations, over two months, with women I met in the square, as well as archiving and ordering the material I collected. Then I planned and realized the in-situ broadcasting of the collected sound material and directed the new relations and conversations with the public for one day in June 2015. The intervention lasted for some hours and different people, mostly men, were participating in conversations that would include the women's voices or not. Their voices came from a past time of the same place, when they were physically present. At another time only their words were there and 'participated'. In my description of the project, I wrote: "The broadcasted female voices were abruptly intervened with the existing conversations in the specific places, giving the impression of an non-invited 'absent' guest" (Diakrousi, 2015). They were distant voices. The audio speaker and myself were mediating them in the then-current public space. My general approach involved the practice of listening- to women's concerns and voices, soundscapes of the square- and participation of the people inhabiting Victoria square.
In one of my projects, *Sound Acts in Victoria Square* I 'inserted' the recorded sounds of women’s voices into existing conversations at a public square in Athens that was male dominated. Most of the frequenters were immigrants and refugees from different periods of migration to Greece. They had come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Albania, Georgia, Russia and other countries. The gender bias and the way they used the public space differed according to their country of origin. However, it was common that many of the young women visiting the square were just passers-by with shopping bags or kids in tow. The men, on the other hand, were hung out with their friends, occupying many spots of the square for hours. My intervention was like so; first, I realized and recorded conversations, over two months, with women I met in the square, as well as archiving and ordering the material I collected. Then I planned and realized the in-situ broadcasting of the collected sound material and directed the new relations and conversations with the public for one day in June 2015. The intervention lasted for some hours and different people, mostly men, were participating in conversations that would include the women's voices or not. Their voices came from a past time of the same place, when they were physically present. At another time only their words were there and 'participated'. In my description of the project, I wrote: "The broadcasted female voicess were abruptly intervened with the existing conversations in the specific places, giving the impression of an non-invited 'absent' guest" (Diakrousi, 2015). They were distant voices. The audio speaker and myself were mediating them in the then-current public space. My general approach involved the practice of listening- to women's concerns and voices, soundscapes of the square- and participation of the people inhabiting Victoria square.
\pagebreak
# 1. The Monstrosity of the Female Voice
# 1. The Monstrosity of the female voices
## What modes: the annoying noise
Here I list, from the text of Carson, how, since ancient times the female voice has been described;
Here I list, from the text of Anne Carson*The Gender of Sound*, how, since ancient times the female voices has been described;
>high-pitched, loud shouting, having too much smile in it, decapitated hen, heartchilling groan, garg, horrendous, howling dogs, being tortured in hell, deadly, incredible babbling, fearsome hullabaloo, she shrieks obscenities, haunting garrulity, monstrous, prodigious noise level, otherwordly echo, making such a racket, a loud roaring noise, disorderly and uncontrolled outflow of sound, shrieking, wailing, sobbing, shrill lament, loud laughter, screams of pain or of pleasure, eruptions of raw emotion, groan, barbarous excesses, female outpourings, bad sound, craziness, non-rational, weeping, emotional display, oral disorder, disturbing, abnormal, "hysteria", "Not public property", exposing her inside facts, private data, permits direct continuity between inside and outside, female ejaculation, "saying ugly things", objectionable, pollution, remarkable
In Ancient Greece, there was a superstition that associated high-pitched voices with evil. Humans, as defined by the patriarchy, differ in their nature to other animals, by virtue of their ability to articulate with sound and create ‘logos’ (speech). In the primitive stage of consciousness, "the brain was ‘bicameral’, with the right hemisphere producing uncontrollable ‘voices’ attributed to the gods which the left hemisphere processed into speech" (Ong, 2002, pg. 30). It was after the figure of Odysseus appeared that these voices didn't matter any more and the self-conscious mind was established. The story of Odysseus symbolizes the beginning of a society that is based on rationality. He, as a clever man, can resist in any temptation his body falls in- the primitive mind would be allured- by using his brain and speech, and that is why he manages to reach safe to his destination. Through 'logos', humans can develop dialogue and democratic processes of communication and decision- making. All the other forms of expression are considered wild and therefore irrational, including the 'hysterical' exposures of women. Aristotle and his contemporaries believed that vocal sounds were based on physiognomy, particularly the genitals of a person, which is why men speak at a low pitch, because of "the tension placed on a man’s vocal chords by his testicles functioning as loom weights" (Carson, 1996, pg. 119). The high-pitched utterance of women, called 'ololyga', which was a ritual practice dedicated to important events of the life, like the birth of a child or the death of a person, was considered a 'pollution' of civic space. If expressed in public, they would create chaos and provoke madness. In mythology, when Odysseus awakens on the island of Phaiakia, he is "surrounded by the shrieking of women (...) and goes on to wonder what sort of savages or super-natural beings can be making such a racket". These women were Nausica and her girlfriends, described by Homer as "wild girls who roam the mountains in attendance upon Artemis" (Carson, 1996, pg. 125). Similarly Alkaios, an ancient poet that had been expelled from the city, where public assemblies took place, was disgusted by the presence of women’s voices talking 'nonsense'. In the ancient world, women were excluded, occupying the margins of society, the dark and formless space where speech and thus politics, were absent. This disorderly, loud female noise was related to an uncivilized, wild space and sound deemed politically incorrect. It seems like these primitive 'uncontrollable voices' became related to some modes of address that were reminders of the past condition of the human brain, judging it as having a malignant influence.\
Today women in public life worry if their voices are too light or high to command respect. Politicians, like Margaret Thatcher, for instance, were trained to learn how to speak in public, to deepen their voice, in order to be taken as seriously as a male speaker would be. Anne Carson (1996, pg. 120) observes that the female voice in public is related to madness, witchery, bestiality, disorder, death and chaos. And thus has to stay hidden from sight.
Today women in public life worry if their voices are too light or high to command respect. Politicians, like Margaret Thatcher, for instance, were trained to learn how to speak in public, to deepen their voice, in order to be taken as seriously as a male speaker would be. Anne Carson (1996, pg. 120) observes that the female voices in public is related to madness, witchery, bestiality, disorder, death and chaos. And thus has to stay hidden from sight.
## Mechanisms of marginalization
@ -42,13 +42,13 @@ The female version of this practice was perceived more as a way for men to silen
### Shut out of the public: Separation of public and private space
Ancient Greek thinkers had set the gender binary and its reflection in space. According to Kevin Fox Gotham (Ελιάνα Καναβέλη, 2012), territorial restrictions, identities and meanings are negotiable, as they are defined through social interaction and controversy. Thus, space is the material of human action and the outcome of social interactions. Western philosophical thought, based on ancient social structures, supports the division between the private and public domains. In public space everybody should be civilized and resolve conflicts through dialogue, but the interior of private spaces is ruled by a domestic power where violence is permitted. This separation has reached a point where men are the main political operators in public space. But the division is also between politicians and citizens, natives and immigrants, and experts and amateurs in rhetoric. Representations of gender and space are not immutable, but they consolidate dominant realities because of their repetition. Outside public spaces have historically been the main arena for male-gendered subjects. Public spaces reflect gender constructions that privatize men, and female subjects are expressing their needs and desires through male figures. The social life of the latter is restricted by the 'housewifization' and the private abode of the house.\
The dominant notion that men are the main operators within the public sphere, together with the idea that women are vulnerable and weak, leads to the normalization of fear of women in outside spaces. The idea that women are excluded from public space because of male violence doesn't mean that men directly exclude women. There are complicated power relations that create this exclusion. Freedom of speech relates to political participation, and in theory everyone can have it, but in practice unwritten rules and power relations define what is going to be said, and to whom. The factor of fear intervenes in this. These rules construct the public sphere and restrict female subjects in expressing harmless thoughts. The voices and speeches of women in public are directed to 'non-listening ears' and they remain silent. In Radio Fresh in Syria, an example that will be mentioned in the next chapter, when women started to broadcast and host their own radio programs, an extremist group stopped them from keep speaking on air. They refused to listen to whatever they want to say, because they are women. They perceive female voice in public as a form of 'nakedness'. However, when women transformed technically their voices to male- technicians helped them to change electronically the quality of their voice as they speak in the microphone- everybody would listen carefully to their words.
The dominant notion that men are the main operators within the public sphere, together with the idea that women are vulnerable and weak, leads to the normalization of fear of women in outside spaces. The idea that women are excluded from public space because of male violence doesn't mean that men directly exclude women. There are complicated power relations that create this exclusion. Freedom of speech relates to political participation, and in theory everyone can have it, but in practice unwritten rules and power relations define what is going to be said, and to whom. The factor of fear intervenes in this. These rules construct the public sphere and restrict female subjects in expressing harmless thoughts. The voices and speeches of women in public are directed to 'non-listening ears' and they remain silent. In Radio Fresh in Syria, an example that will be mentioned in the next chapter, when women started to broadcast and host their own radio programs, an extremist group stopped them from keep speaking on air. They refused to listen to whatever they want to say, because they are women. They perceive female voices in public as a form of 'nakedness'. However, when women transformed technically their voices to male- technicians helped them to change electronically the quality of their voice as they speak in the microphone- everybody would listen carefully to their words.
## The Roots of Collective Voice
The voice is a medium for collective practice. According to Walter Ong (2002, pg. 67), "[o]ral communication unites people in groups. Writing and reading [of literate cultures] are solitary activities that throw the psyche back on itself". Orality, or thought and verbal expression which is not based on writing and reading skills, has still a presence in contemporary Western cultures. It has been transformed into a new orality that "has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment (...) But it is essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality" (Ong. pg.13). However, the rational individualistic democracy stands against this collective vocalization that includes the sounds of all the other species and marginalized genders. But mainly it is a reminder of a primitive human mode of address that creates alienation and feelings of fear of looking back.
## Conclusion
The association of the female voice with bestiality and disorder justifies the tactic of patriarchal culture to ‘put a lid’ on the female mouth since ancient times. Different mechanisms have been developed to exclude specific forms of address from the public which are based on complicated power relations in society. Collective and female vocalizations are perceived as threats to society and thus they are undergoing filtration and 'normalization'- in a way of silencing and self-control. They get regulated and rational, with restricting included passions and desires.
The association of the female voices with bestiality and disorder justifies the tactic of patriarchal culture to ‘put a lid’ on the female mouth since ancient times. Different mechanisms have been developed to exclude specific forms of address from the public which are based on complicated power relations in society. Collective and female vocalizations are perceived as threats to society and thus they are undergoing filtration and 'normalization'- in a way of silencing and self-control. They get regulated and rational, with restricting included passions and desires.
\pagebreak
# 2. Multiplication Vis a Vis Amplification
@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ At some occasions, the amplification of the voice, as a mode of prohibition and
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Suffragette speech-making workshops were a way to provide women with tools “with which to take their concerns out into the public domain” (Rose Gibbs, 2016), or in other words to amplify their voices in public. In 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst and The East London Federation of Suffragettes would organize these workshops in private spaces, to encourage women to practice speech and feel comfortable with it before they spoke in public. They would read speeches out loud to other women. Like Suffragettes, women, even today, struggle with lack of confidence, when appearing in public. Back then, feminist Margaret Wynne Nevinson, "once wrote she felt a 'dizzy sickness of terror' the first time she stood up to speak publicly" (Cochrane, 2013). Some of them would feel anxious because of male eyes looking at them intensively. This emphasis on speech was an extension of a non-violent political philosophy of early feminism. They focused on the voice because there is a uniqueness in it, that embodies the speaker when entering a dialogue. It is an approach that rejects the abstract and bodiless universal identity of one's person that has been developed by Western thought. By such an identity, I mean that one person is represented as a universal entity that shares the same characteristics and problems with all the people. So, this person can be represented by somebody else by proxy, such as a politician or family member, in a conversation concerning her/his own body. But from a feminist perspective, each individual is unique and carries personal and situated problems and principles, so they are the only one that can represent themselves. Even more, the voice through speech- that can take the form of songs passing from one to the other or the collective voice of protesting- links one another and at the same time keeps the individuality of the speaker. In contrast to mainstream political spheres, feminists, like anarchists, looked for horizontal ways of communication where no voice dominated over others (Gibbs, 2016). Listening and waiting for everyone to speak, even the most timid, is a basic element of these kind of practices.\
Suffragette speech-making workshops were a way to provide women with tools “with which to take their concerns out into the public domain” (Rose Gibbs, 2016), or in other words to amplify their voices in public. In 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst and The East London Federation of Suffragettes would organize these workshops in private spaces, to encourage women to practice speech and feel comfortable with it before they spoke in public. They would read speeches out loud to other women. Like Suffragettes, women, even today, struggle with lack of confidence, when appearing in public. Back then, feminist Margaret Wynne Nevinson, "once wrote she felt a 'dizzy sickness of terror' the first time she stood up to speak publicly" (Cochrane, 2013). Some of them would feel anxious because of male eyes looking at them intensively. This emphasis on speech was an extension of a non-violent political philosophy of early feminism. They focused on the voice because there is a uniqueness in it, that embodies the speaker when entering a dialogue. It is an approach that rejects the abstract and bodiless universal identity of one's person that has been developed by Western thought. By such an identity, I mean that one person is represented as a universal entity that shares the same characteristics and problems with all the people. So, this person can be represented by somebody else by proxy, such as a politician or family member, in a conversation concerning her/his own body. But from a feminist perspective, each individual is unique and carries personal and situated problems and principles, so they are the only one that can represent themselves. Even more, the voice through speech- that can take the form of songs passing from one to the other or the collective voice of protesting- links one another and at the same time keeps the individuality of the speaker. In contrast to mainstream political spheres, feminists, like anarchists, looked for horizontal ways of communication where no voice dominated over others (Gibbs, 2016). Listening and waiting for everyone to speak, even the most timid, is a basic element of these kind of practices.\
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@ -79,9 +79,9 @@ In the examples of radio art and pirate radio activism, the temporariness and si
>"We started doing it in the 1990s that the machinery was already quite small. It was simply easier to hide the transmitter, when it has the size of a cigarette pack. The transmitter they used before it was much bigger and it needed more electricity. So, we had this small transmitter, which had five watch power, so it was really weak- it just reach parts of the city of Graz- and then additionally we had a tape walkman to that. You have to think it's the beginning of the 1990s, so there is no mobile computers, accessible to us. There is no Internet, in the sense of how we use it now. (...) We have this small cigarette pack size transmitter more or less. And we have this also very small walkman. Both can function with batteries, because it was also not very long time that we broadcast. And the antenna, it is a Yagi antenna, but it is not the fixed one. (...) its foldable (...) And we would hang it on a tree. We would go to one of the hills outside the city, surrounding the city. And we knew those who control the frequency band. You know you have the official administration for defining who is actually aloud to broadcast and then you have different bodies of administration that actually control what is happening in the frequency band and we knew where they are and that they are constantly scanning what is happening in the band. The moment you switch on an additional transmitter they immediately see the pick and in a very short time- and I've seen them once doing it live- it takes them seconds to find out where you are. It is frustrating because 'chack' [sound of fingers] they have you. But then of course to actually catch you they have to physically go where you are. (...) we always broadcast on Sunday noon, 1 pm, so we knew this is when people have this Sunday late breakfast/brunch think and they can listen to us and that it would take the controlling body about 20 minutes to get from the place they are, a tower in the center of town, to the hill we were. So we had 18 minutes of broadcasting time and then we had to pack and disappear. (...) And then you just pack it in a little backpack, because it is so small, you can fold the antenna the two things are really small and you are taking a stroll in a Sunday afternoon" (Hofmüller, 2018).
Since 1920, radio was criticized as a wasteland of commercials and state propaganda. It was Bertolt Brecht (Kanouse, 2011, pg. 87) who perceived it as transceiver to experiment with, and questioning its use, and Walter Benjamin who noticed that it would fail as long as the separation between practitioners and public persisted. From early on, tight regulations restricted the electromagnetic public sphere so that artists didn’t engage deeply with its elements and it was constantly seen as “an unrealized and undertheorized social and aesthetic space” (Kanouse, 2011, pg. 87). Only pirate radio practitioners, with their low-tech practice and self-broadcasting, could interrogate the public, critical and political aspects of radio, as Brecht and Benjamin would imagine. Sarah Kanouse sees the use of prohibited technologies and the confrontation with these restrictions as a political act, one that can propose an “anti-authoritarian radical democracy” (Kanouse, 2011, pg. 89) through the formation of small groups that learn to broadcast and produce alternative media cultures. An unlicensed broadcast can challenge what public art wants to; the creation of a public sphere willing to interrogate the “democracy” of which public space is a part of.\
She brings the example of a project, called *Talking Homes* by John Brumit, which was realized under the residency of the Neighborhood Public Radio (little NPR) arts collective of Detroit. The inhabitants broadcast personal stories through transmitters located in their houses and other buildings, revealing the struggle and the daily routine of these people living in degraded neighborhoods. The interviewers were trained by the artist to use their transmitters. It seemed that the exposition of the private sphere, reflected in the localization of the media and the gossip produced, to the public more clearly re-framed clearer the struggle for the neighborhood than big radio networks had. The public engagement, which was not of the typically privileged audience of art spaces, was deep even though the broadcast may have been illegal. The project embodied the spirit of NPR, characterized by the smallness, site-specificity and listener’s participation. Even though these small transmitters don't have many listeners because of their small range, NRC sees that as a way to link people and thus negates the previously mentioned separation of practitioner and public mentioned before. The little NPR, in contrast to National Public Radio (the big NPR), embraces amateurism on the base of its 'polymorphous' structure. In other words, it embraces the instability, diversity, discomforts and the contradictions it produces.\
She brings the example of a project, called *Talking Homes* by John Brumit, which was realized under the residency of the Neighborhood Public Radio (little NPR) arts collective of Detroit. The inhabitants broadcast personal stories through transmitters located in their houses and other buildings, revealing the struggle and the daily routine of these people living in degraded neighborhoods. The interviewers were trained by the artist to use their transmitters. It seemed that the exposition of the private sphere, reflected in the localization of the media and the gossip produced, to the public more clearly re-framed clearer the struggle for the neighborhood than big radio networks had. The public engagement, which was not of the typically privileged audience of art spaces, was deep even though the broadcast may have been illegal. The project embodied the spirit of NPR, characterized by the smallness, site-specificity and listener’s participation. Even though these small transmitters don't have many listeners because of their small range, NRC sees that as a way to link people and thus negates the previously mentioned separation of practitioner and public mentioned before. The little NPR, in contrast to National Public Radio (the big NPR), embraces amateurism on the base of its 'polymorphous' structure. In other words, it embraces the instability, diversity, discomforts and the contradictions it produces. It is very often that in my practice I approach neighborhoods and specific places to try actions of listening and... This is a way to eliminate the binary of expert and amateur, artist and audience. Some times this approach means that I have to reduce my ambitions and the media used because it gets very complicated. But I build up something with the people there that gradually reach to the point I can introduce more mediations and .... \
The second project that Kanouse talks about is *The Public Broadcast Cart* made by Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga, which is a portable home-made radio, broadcasting the voice of someone driving a cart in several places. The voice of the participant becomes public on site through speakers and extends to radio frequencies and the Internet. The legality of the radio cart doesn’t concern the present, public and this unusual object attracts their attention even more. Based on an open- source, pirate radio spirit, this offering of access to the technology refuses the specialization and the prohibition of the airwaves. The parallel expanses of the voice and the uncensored speech in three different public spaces occupies at the same time the physical, on-line and electromagnetic realm. The DIY electronic media empowers both individual and collective voices.\
During the conflict in Syria, a group of people that wanted to broadcast their own news for the safety of the citizens and the avoidance of more killings, set up a radio station. Its programs would include urgent announcements of battles, strikes, and skirmishes, tutorials for medical care, music and other topical issues. The station, which was called *Radio Fresh*<sup>[1](#myfootnote3)</sup>, ceased to exist in 2016 because of a sudden intervention from Nusra, an extremist Islamist group. While it was on the air the male initiators invited women, who were mainly hidden in their houses, to produce their own programs. Some groups of women decided to first learn vocal techniques. They then broadcasted their own music and speech, but after a while Nusra threatened to close the station if women didn't leave. "Nusra considered their voices shameful, a form of nakedness" (667: Wartime Radio, 2019), similar to the political nakedness that Anne Carson refers to in her text. When Alkaios, an archaic poet, was exiled in the outskirts of the city, he is surrounded by the cries of women- "[n]o proper civic space would contain it unregulated" (Carson, 1996, pg. 125). A man would not make a sound like that and for Alkaios to be exposed to it is a condition of political nakedness. Pythagoras had a similar opinion about his wife's voice; he believed that her speech like her body should not exposed to public, "and she should as modestly guard against exposing her voice to outsiders as she would guard against stripping off her clothes" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129).This appears to be a shameful act, even today, given the example I mentioned before. But, then, doesn't this assumption establish that the female voice lacks political connotation? This kind of male extremist group aspires to preventing women from political expression. After these threats, these women were helped to electronically re-modulate their voices from female to male. They felt weird with this transformation, but everybody was taking their words seriously and after a while they got used to it. It became part of themselves, " it just became normal, and it literally got to the point where I could tell you which girl was which voice" (667: Wartime Radio, 2019)\
During the conflict in Syria, a group of people that wanted to broadcast their own news for the safety of the citizens and the avoidance of more killings, set up a radio station. Its programs would include urgent announcements of battles, strikes, and skirmishes, tutorials for medical care, music and other topical issues. The station, which was called *Radio Fresh*<sup>[1](#myfootnote3)</sup>, ceased to exist in 2016 because of a sudden intervention from Nusra, an extremist Islamist group. While it was on the air the male initiators invited women, who were mainly hidden in their houses, to produce their own programs. Some groups of women decided to first learn vocal techniques. They then broadcasted their own music and speech, but after a while Nusra threatened to close the station if women didn't leave. "Nusra considered their voices shameful, a form of nakedness" (667: Wartime Radio, 2019), similar to the political nakedness that Anne Carson refers to in her text. When Alkaios, an archaic poet, was exiled in the outskirts of the city, he is surrounded by the cries of women- "[n]o proper civic space would contain it unregulated" (Carson, 1996, pg. 125). A man would not make a sound like that and for Alkaios to be exposed to it is a condition of political nakedness. Pythagoras had a similar opinion about his wife's voice; he believed that her speech like her body should not exposed to public, "and she should as modestly guard against exposing her voice to outsiders as she would guard against stripping off her clothes" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129).This appears to be a shameful act, even today, given the example I mentioned before. But, then, doesn't this assumption establish that the female voices lacks political connotation? This kind of male extremist group aspires to preventing women from political expression. After these threats, these women were helped to electronically re-modulate their voices from female to male. They felt weird with this transformation, but everybody was taking their words seriously and after a while they got used to it. It became part of themselves, " it just became normal, and it literally got to the point where I could tell you which girl was which voice" (667: Wartime Radio, 2019)\
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@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ One perceived 'ugly' form of address in Ancient Greece was an utterance, a high-
Other ugly things are the private and hidden events of family violence. For feminists in the early 20th century, public speech, in a group of other women sharing the same problem, was a way to externalize the personal violence and suppression of women, without using violence in response. Protesters, respectively, talk collectively about the unfair economic and political structure of the society either by demonstrating or occupying public spaces, such as the recent Occupy Movement and Arab Spring. All these examples do not follow the rationalist approach of the context they are part of. They express passion, vulnerabilities and unfulfilled desires with their voices and presence. The idea that democracy is a civilized way of making decisions that doesn't accept any form of over-emotion or overflow of expression, is nothing more than an illusion that actually threatens the existence of democracy by creating exclusion and disregarding the importance of passions and desires in politics. As Chantal Mouffe says, "[i]f there is anything that endangers democracy nowadays, it is precisely the rationalist approach, because it is blind to the nature of the political and denies the central role that passions play in the field of politics" (Mouffe, 2000b, pg. 146). Thus, democratic processes should take into consideration any irrational fantasies and desires that the public express. Their suppression may lead to repressed pain, fanaticism and totalitarianism, as there is no space for them to exist. The rationalist mind is connected to the contemporary literate and civilized individual, who has rejected the wild primitive subjectivity, as it belongs to the past. But, this Darwinian ideology of linear evolution rejects present abnormal- that cannot adjust in the current regime- behaviors, which may express minorities and propose new democratic practices. A strong critical relation with the past is needed, and even more, to embrace elements from previous and other more 'primitive' cultures in a non-linear way.
## Streaming media in relation to female continuity
In ancient medical and anatomical theory women had two mouths, the upper and the lower, connected through the neck. The lips of both these mouths guarded a 'hollow cavity' and they had to remain closed. Having two mouths that speak simultaneously is confusing and embarrassing, and this creates ‘kakophony’. Females were expressing something directly when it should have been said indirectly. Traditionally, this direct continuity between the inside and the outside is repulsive to the male nature, which aspires for self-control, interrupting this continuity and dissociating the inside from the outside (Carson, 1996, pg. 131). Women 'transmit' unfiltered information. At this point I would like to draw a parallel with streaming media, which has been used as a tool of direct and urgent communication by protesters, as in the case of the Occupy Movement. Similarly with the continuity I described before, streaming protocols and processes deliver unedited live messages that sometimes disagree with the mainstream. At Occupy Wall Street, for example, streaming media, like Livestream, Ustream and Youtube, was a way for protesters to be immediately heard in public and to broadcast their own news online. Thus, experts or official media platforms were unable to filter their speech or alter messages before they were spread online. The companies providing online streaming didn't agree with the actions and messages of #occupy and thus they would publicly disassociate themselves from them. "Both Livestream and Ustream officials say they simply operate platforms and are not supporting the movements(...)[they] removed advertising from the Occupy channels after some brands complained that they did not want their ads appearing next to streaming video of protesters"(Preston, 2011). Similarly, radio streaming has been a way for activists, protesters and citizens to share their own news and program. In times of war, citizens set up their own radio stations, that proposes alternative source of news and can't be censored by the government- radio technology can escape mainstream platforms, such as Internet, and thus avoid part of surveillance from top. In Syria for example, during war, activists built a radio station, called Radio Fresh, which, besides other things, was announcing strikes and battles for the safety of citizens (667: Wartime Radio, 2019). I will elaborate on the example in *Multiplication Vis a Vis Amplification*. This unaltered and direct speech of (radio/streaming) broadcasting has similarities with the uncontrolled direct expression of the female bodies in public (like 'hysteria', 'aischrologia', 'ololyga'). There is a fear of continuity related to the message that comes out, unedited, from the inside of the human 'container' and its channels. This continuity seems to me to be like an 'embodied streaming' that relates the medium with the human body, based on the need for a message to be articulated and distributed to others. Live streaming provides the opportunity for a body to be present somewhere else, with a slight delay, through the voice or a video representation.
In ancient medical and anatomical theory women had two mouths, the upper and the lower, connected through the neck. The lips of both these mouths guarded a 'hollow cavity' and they had to remain closed. Having two mouths that speak simultaneously is confusing and embarrassing, and this creates ‘kakophony’. Females were expressing something directly when it should have been said indirectly. Traditionally, this direct continuity between the inside and the outside is repulsive to the male nature, which aspires for self-control, interrupting this continuity and dissociating the inside from the outside (Carson, 1996, pg. 131). Women 'transmit' unfiltered information. At this point I would like to draw a fantastic parallel with streaming media, which has been used as a tool of direct and urgent communication by protesters, as in the case of the Occupy Movement. Similarly with the continuity I described before, streaming protocols and processes deliver unedited live messages that sometimes disagree with the mainstream. At Occupy Wall Street, for example, streaming media, like Livestream, Ustream and Youtube, was a way for protesters to be immediately heard in public and to broadcast their own news online. Thus, experts or official media platforms were unable to filter their speech or alter messages before they were spread online. The companies providing online streaming didn't agree with the actions and messages of #occupy and thus they would publicly disassociate themselves from them. "Both Livestream and Ustream officials say they simply operate platforms and are not supporting the movements(...)[they] removed advertising from the Occupy channels after some brands complained that they did not want their ads appearing next to streaming video of protesters"(Preston, 2011). Similarly, radio streaming has been a way for activists, protesters and citizens to share their own news and program. In times of war, citizens set up their own radio stations, that proposes alternative source of news and can't be censored by the government- radio technology can escape mainstream platforms, such as Internet, and thus avoid part of surveillance from top. In Syria for example, during war, activists built a radio station, called Radio Fresh, which, besides other things, was announcing strikes and battles for the safety of citizens (667: Wartime Radio, 2019). I will elaborate on the example in *Multiplication Vis a Vis Amplification*. This unaltered and direct speech of (radio/streaming) broadcasting has similarities with the uncontrolled direct expression of the female bodies in public (like 'hysteria', 'aischrologia', 'ololyga'). There is a fear of continuity related to the message that comes out, unedited, from the inside of the human 'container' and its channels. This continuity seems to me to be like an 'embodied streaming' that relates the medium with the human body, based on the need for a message to be articulated and distributed to others. Live streaming provides the opportunity for a body to be present somewhere else, with a slight delay, through the voice or a video representation.
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@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ Marginalized modes of address share concerns that seem uninteresting for Western
# General conclusion
Considering the question of what does female and collective speech acts reveal and suggest for our societies, I have mapped different approaches of marginalized voices to inhabit public space. These modes of address are taking into consideration their embodiment and their specificity. They give a great emphasis on participation and listening, as opposed to an exclusive emphasis on delivery of a message, that dominant forms of articulation do. This embodied and situated action is performative, in that it produces a public space from which to speak. This space differs from the established institutional forums on which democracy is based.\
Looking back in time, ancient thinking about on the female voice- as an 'ugly' form of articulation- has affected the way women could speak in public up to the present day. Associating the female voice with bestiality and disorder provided an excuse for patriarchal society to silence women publicly and to restrict them in the private space of their homes. The female voice is associated with direct emotional vocalization, that resembles the vocal expressions of primitive oral cultures. The continuity of their speech, which connects their inside truths directly to the outside of their body, is confusing for men. Their mode of address is not the only, one that is submitted to filtration and control; the collective vocalization and any other form that deviates from the rational sphere of human nature, and threatens Western society, excludes them, despite its democratic profile. Women's messages contain 'irrational' passions and desires, and mediation of these messages, because of gender exclusion, happens outside of the main public platform, and with technologies that facilitate an expression characterized by urgency and directness. Practices, of those who are marginalized, embrace the multiplication and amplification of their voices in public, either using their bodies or low-tech apparatus. With these two ways they occupy the public domain. One of my main thoughts, has been around this idea of continuity of speech, that has been related to the two- mouthed female body. The relation between ways of prohibition of normative modes of address, and the mediation of a direct, unfiltered speech, suggests an 'embodied streaming'; a personal and horizontal way to express concerns in public uncontrolled by governments and representatives. All these approaches and practices are suggesting open and active spaces of democratic processes. Our society has entered a 'second orality'- a verbal expression that includes elements from oral cultures, but with the use of high technology- and its time that we take advantage of its agonistic dynamics.
Looking back in time, ancient thinking about on the female voices- as an 'ugly' form of articulation- has affected the way women could speak in public up to the present day. Associating the female voices with bestiality and disorder provided an excuse for patriarchal society to silence women publicly and to restrict them in the private space of their homes. The female voices is associated with direct emotional vocalization, that resembles the vocal expressions of primitive oral cultures. The continuity of their speech, which connects their inside truths directly to the outside of their body, is confusing for men. Their mode of address is not the only, one that is submitted to filtration and control; the collective vocalization and any other form that deviates from the rational sphere of human nature, and threatens Western society, excludes them, despite its democratic profile. Women's messages contain 'irrational' passions and desires, and mediation of these messages, because of gender exclusion, happens outside of the main public platform, and with technologies that facilitate an expression characterized by urgency and directness. Practices, of those who are marginalized, embrace the multiplication and amplification of their voices in public, either using their bodies or low-tech apparatus. With these two ways they occupy the public domain. One of my main thoughts, has been around this idea of continuity of speech, that has been related to the two- mouthed female body. The relation between ways of prohibition of normative modes of address, and the mediation of a direct, unfiltered speech, suggests an 'embodied streaming'; a personal and horizontal way to express concerns in public uncontrolled by governments and representatives. All these approaches and practices are suggesting open and active spaces of democratic processes. Our society has entered a 'second orality'- a verbal expression that includes elements from oral cultures, but with the use of high technology- and its time that we take advantage of its agonistic dynamics.
\pagebreak
# Notes
@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ Miranda Zúñiga, *The Broadcast Cart transmitting*, image, viewed 4 March 2019,
**Amplification** to increase the strength or amount of. Especially : to make louder. A figure of speech that adds importance to increase its rhetorical effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplification\
**Democracy**\
**Embodied** To incarnate, to incorporate\
**Female Voice** high-pitched, loud shouting, having too much smile in it, decapitated hen, heartchilling groan, garg, horrendous, howling dogs, being tortured in hell, deadly, ...........craziness, non-rational, weeping, emotional display, oral disorder, disturbing, abnormal, "hysteria", "Not public property", exposing her inside facts, private data, permits direct continuity between inside and outside, female ejaculation, "saying ugly things", objectionable, pollution, remarkable (from Carson)\
**female voices** high-pitched, loud shouting, having too much smile in it, decapitated hen, heartchilling groan, garg, horrendous, howling dogs, being tortured in hell, deadly, ...........craziness, non-rational, weeping, emotional display, oral disorder, disturbing, abnormal, "hysteria", "Not public property", exposing her inside facts, private data, permits direct continuity between inside and outside, female ejaculation, "saying ugly things", objectionable, pollution, remarkable (from Carson)\
