<dt><ahref="/home/angeliki/Documents/0918_PZI/0918_Grad/Grad_project proposal/D_streaming screaming/West Rotterdam/leeszaal_repetition.html"target="_blank">Diary of West Rotterdam</dt>
In my thesis I refer to the binaries and gender structures that characterize the voice. I want break these barriers and show the cabability of voice, exploring that with people in the physical space but also online. I build up a connection/a communication channel/ a space with these people through small performative actions. I will introduce gradually the concept of the mediation of the voice and its abilities to amplify one's presence in different platforms. I will introduce thechnologies and ways to mediate the voice. I will test which one wrks best for them (web streaming, recording and publish it online? ). Engaging with the people through listening the surroundings,...Mainstream media and public space in cities serves the amplification of the voice of the powerful that dominates over others. This is based on strong power realations. These exclusions are expressed in those binaries (private/public,...). Bodies restricted to express, voice is an important part of this expression. But has also gone beyond the primary orality. How to explore this second orality?
## Context and questions
In my project I see voice as a medium for collective practice and a medium of resistance. By that I mean that speech acts, demonstrations or even daily vocalizations expressed in public are performative actions that are making space, through sound and presence, and are inviting in including people in a dialogue. But I also see voice being characterized by social binary structures and oppositions. For example the terms used to describe voice are separated like that; male/female, public/private, expert/amateur, rational/ irational, ordered/wild.
These binaries have structured Western thinking since antiquity and favor the 'civilized white male' subjectivities. Nevertheless the nature of voice and its capabilities overpass these oppositions of gender, nationality, culture, space and technology.
My research seeks to unravel the possibilities of voices to include and break these binaries, with the intention to *explore democratic ways of communication that embraces excluded forms of address*.
## What to show (strategy)
My approach is to create a space for that exploration to happen with others through performative actions, meetings and sound walks. I focus on one specific area and public space (around Leeszaal in Rotterdam West) because my past exploration on voice and research showed me that the site-specificity and involvement of people in the process can actually break these binaries and engage more people. It is also that voice through the form of speech acts or public exposure, can create space of dialogue and be inviting.
My main focus is on the presence and amplification of female voices in public spaces. My approach is based on feedback and process-based actions unraveled throughout a short period around the area of Leeszaal. So I first started exploring the area by walking and listening to the sounds that reveal who occupies public space and how, what sounds describe the absense of excluded voices? **What voices are amplified and mediated and how? What mediation allows them to be amplified** I then ask from people visiting leeszaal- most of them are inhabitants from that area- to listen to a selection of sounds I have recorded and describe them. From that process I want to create an archive of annotated sounds that reveal the different interpretations of these sounds, that depend on the perspective of each person, that is formed by culture, gender, social status.
At the same time I approach people, mainly women, from Leeszaal and arrange short meetings with them where we talk about exclusion or silencing of women in public spaces and explore forms of speech acts through small workshops. These workshops are about reading extracts related to the topic, warm-up vocal exercises, transcribing, listening and collective speaking. Until now I introduce the topic to some of them and talk to each other through vowels because vowels in all languages are inviting got dialogue.
## Future
I build up a connection/a communication channel/ a safe space with these people through small performative actions. I will introduce gradually the concept of the mediation of the voice and its abilities to amplify one's presence in different platforms/spaces. I will introduce thechnologies and ways to mediate the voice. I will test which one wrks best for them (web streaming, recording and publish it online? ).
Engaging more with the people through listening the surroundings,...Mainstream media and public space in cities serves the amplification of the voice of the powerful that dominates over others. This is based on strong power relations. These exclusions are expressed in those binaries (private/public,...). Bodies restricted to express, voice is an important part of this expression. But has also gone beyond the primary orality. How to explore this second orality?
I borrow practices from the examples I explore, that also follow my methods. Site-specificity, listening, participation, less medium, temporality,
## Intention
## why (Intention)
I want to make space for these things to unravel
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
“What kinds of collective practices do voices – especially women speaking aloud – make possible?’ directly to your own current or planned work?
<em>Hypothesis #1: I assume that gender representation is different in public spaces. What sounds reveal that? I assume that separation of public and private reflect that.
Experiment: I listen and record carefully sounds from the area that are coming from different spaces and voices. Exploring the private and public. Asking inhabitants to describe these sounds.</em>
I want to explore voice and its ability to break binaries
Through performative and feedback actions I invite people to listen and talk in public
I want to make space through vocal and sound actions for the topic of gender binary to emerge
How can female voices get amplified in public space and networks
## what
I want to interrogate and explore methods of adress and vocal presence in public spaces (either physical or digital?). Especially the presence of female voices in public spaces, what places they avoid and what sounds describe that absense or excluded form of address. My approach is to create a forum/space for that exploration to emerge through performative actions, meetings and sound walks and an archiving material of sounds from the area I am connected with. I focus on one specific area and public space through which I can act (like a base) and interact.
My approach is based on feedback and process-based actions unraveled throughout a period. This feedback comes from feministc approaches on listening and giving back to the people, relating in practices of listening and participating. So, first I want to explore speech acts- a performative action of making things and space for it through embodied participation and vocal expression, together with others by applying practices related to it in a safe space. And second listening to our surroundings, presences that occupy the public space, how they get expressed, what these sounds reveal, what do we understand.
Make a platform or object of interaction and leave people decide what to do with it
Relation to publishing:
@ -10,33 +16,7 @@ Relation to publishing:
## How (example)
WARM UP YOUR VOICE
I want to create a temporary (public) space of expression and active involvement.
"speech act embraces the way the language is used and communicates what should be done and not what does this mean." Focus on sound and presence of the voice. Occupying space by presence and radio.
A series of meetings and trying outs of vocal workshops in moments of Leeszaal (language courses, wereldvrouwen, cafe NL). In the meetings we can also use material from previous meetings.
Exercises:
- Reading extracts or just discussing, saying a sentence in the native language, somebody else transcribing the vowels of that sentense, reading outloud the vowels all together, or only the person that transcribed them. If we read it all together we record ouselves and listening back to it. Like creating small chanting pieces every time we meet.
The vowels are a chain link between languages (the chinese can ).
- Reading the texts of how the female voice sounds like. Recording and listening.
- Opening up the process: streaming online and opening the possibility for others to react on it.
FEEDBACK COMPOSITION
Subverting the area by embedding sounds from other areas or online spheres (that maybe reflect an past image of the area or my imaginations). Relation of content with title and structure of Sound walk (private- public, gender separation, amplification of female voice, mediators, distorted voice). Sounds of exclusion or daily routines inside houses of women
- Hypothesis #1: I assume that gender representation is different in public spaces. What sounds reveal that? I assume that separation of public and private reflect that.
Experiment: I listen and record carefully sounds from the area that are coming from different spaces and voices. Exploring the private and public.Asking inhabitants to describe these sounds.
Outcome:audio selection 1 and recording of women listening to it.
- Hypothesis2: I assume that this area was like zuidplein (before gentrification, colonized past, many immigrants)
outcome: recording other area, zuidplein, visiting other areas and online material from Rotterdam
- Hypothesis3: I assume demonstration or speech acts in public are male dominated
Experiment: search online material and my previous recordings. Visit areas and platforms from the area that they work as spaces for speech act.
outcome: audio selection 2
- Hypothesis4: I assume that people are related differently to the sounds and have different opinion/approaches/experiences related to public sounds and presence.
Experiment: How to reveal more about these sounds and peoples stories? Questions to the people=> where is that sound came from, what space it has existed and what has happened. So opening the discussion on female voices and sounds in public.
Future hypothesis/experiment:
@ -44,23 +24,6 @@ Why not in the end invite people to add their own recordings/ introduce recordin
Imagining these sounds differently, add abstract animal terms.
SOUNDWALK AND READING ROOM
Walking all together, one is reading extracts (one extract each group). Listening to the broadcast and waiting for somebody else to finish
A portable reading room (relation to publishing)
A walkable reading room
Everyone has a different interpretation when listening to surrounding sounds, because of the structures that define their identity. Patterns of sounds of the area that reveal these structures. And giving it back to them to describe and listen carefully to their everyday environment. Not just extracting, as an artist, fragments of their world.
first reflected in the landscape/soundscape of the area (private/public) and second tools for the inhabitants to get comfortable with it/discuss about it through meetings.
and then invite for going outside
through a feministic approach. Which means I collect material and return it back to the people involved (a feminist feedback composition).
ARCHIVE: Interface
Description from me in audio about my experience
Broadcast in the end my material?
## why (intention)
silencing of women/ establishment of spaces and roles because of the relation between space and identity/ gender construction. Gender separation in public space
<div><spanstyle="font-size: 30px;"><b>Let' s Talk About Unspeakable Things</b></span> <spanstyle="color:pink;">by Angeliki Diakrousi</span></div>
<div><br><br><spanstyle="font-size: 30px;"><b>Let' s Talk About Unspeakable Things</b></span> <spanstyle="color:pink;">by Angeliki Diakrousi</span></div><br><br>
<divid="toc_container">
<pclass="toc_title">Contents</p>
<ulclass="toc_list">
<li><ahref="#introduction">Introduction</a>
</li>
<li><ahref="the-monstrosity-of-the-female-voices">1. The Monstrosity of the female voices</a></li>
<ul>
<li><ahref="what-modes-the-annoying-noise">What modes: the annoying noise</a></li>
<li><ahref="mechanisms-of-marginalization">Mechanisms of marginalization</a></li>
<li><ahref="shut-out-of-the-public-separation-of-public-and-private-space">Shut out of the public: Separation of public and private space</a></li>
<li><ahref="the-roots-of-collective-voice">The Roots of Collective Voice</a></li>
</ul>
<li><ahref="multiplication-vis-a-vis-amplification">2. Multiplication Vis a Vis Amplification</a></li>
<ul>
<li><ahref="the-mediation-of-voice-through-multiplication">The mediation of voice through multiplication</a></li>
<li><ahref="the-mediation-of-voice-through-amplification">The mediation of voice through amplification</a></li>
<p>Even though voice is a medium for collective practice, as Walter Ong argues in his book <em>Orality and Literacy</em>, 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 <em>The Monstrosity of the female voices</em>. 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 <em>Multiplication vis a vis Amplification</em>. 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 <em>Transmitting Ugly Things</em>.<br/>
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:</p>
@ -157,4 +207,5 @@ Miranda Zúñiga, <em>The Broadcast Cart transmitting</em>, image, viewed 4 Marc
<strong>Streaming</strong> refers to the process of delivering, it is a steady current of a fluid, a technique for transferring data so that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream.<br/>
<strong>Transmitting</strong> is the act of passing, communicating, sending, to spread from one to another<br/>
<strong>Voice</strong> is the vocal sound that comes from the inside of the body and articulates speech There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. If the user does not have enough bandwidth in their Internet connection, they may experience stops, lags or slow buffering in the content and some users may not be able to stream certain content due to not having compatible computer or software systems.</p>
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 and restrict its possibilities. These binaries have structured Western thinking since antiquity and favor the 'civilized white male' subjectivities. Nevertheless the nature of voice and its capabilities overpass these oppositions of gender, nationality, culture, space, technology and power relations. This research seeks to unravel these possibilities of voices, with the intention to explore democratic ways of communication that embraces excluded forms of address. It deals with the break of dichotomies of male/female, public/private, expert/amateur, rational/ irational, ordered/wild.
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. These binaries have structured Western thinking since antiquity and favor the 'civilized white male' subjectivities. Nevertheless the nature of voice and its capabilities overpass these oppositions of gender, nationality, culture, space, technology and power relations. My research seeks to unravel these possibilities of voices, with the intention to explore democratic ways of communication that embraces excluded forms of address. It deals with breaking the dichotomies of male/female, public/private, expert/amateur, rational/ irational, ordered/wild.
My ongoing research lead me to the public forums, speech, and the technologies that facilitate them, from a feminist perspective.
@ -45,19 +45,19 @@ In one of my projects, *Sound Acts in Victoria Square* I 'inserted' the recorded
# 1. The Monstrosity of Female Voices
## What modes: the annoying noise
Throughout this thesis, I am referring extensively to Anne Carson's text *The Gender of Sound*, because it indicates the false association of the quality of the voice with the use of it under the aspect of gender and brings many examples of the binaries I am referring to the binaries. Here I list, from her text how, since ancient times, female voices have been described;
Throughout this thesis, I am referring extensively to Anne Carson's text *The Gender of Sound*, because it indicates the false association of the quality of the voice with the use of it under the aspect of gender and brings many examples of the binaries I am referring to. Here I list, from her text, how, since ancient times, female voices have 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
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In Ancient Greece, there was a superstition that associated high-pitched voices with evil. Humans, as defined by 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 Western 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.\
In Ancient Greece, there was a superstition that associated high-pitched voices with evil. Humans, as defined by 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 Western 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. Aristotle and his contemporaries believed that vocal sounds were based on 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 voices in public is related to madness, witchery, bestiality, disorder, death and chaos. And thus has to stay hidden from sight.
## Mechanisms of marginalization
The mechanisms of marginalization of these specific modes of address are based on control and filtering. One example is the repetitive action of self-control that comes from the ancient tactic of controlling emotional exposure of one's own. Carson (1996, pg. 126) says that patriarchal thinking on emotional and ethical matters is related to ‘sophrosyne’, or self- control of the body. A man is feminized when he lets his emotions come out, and so he has to control his body, and subsequently himself. "Females blurt out a direct translation of what should be formulated indirectly" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129). It was believed that the masculine deep voice, by default, indicates self-control. So, the doctors of archaic periods would suggest exercises of oration to men to cure the damage inflicted by repeated use of a loud, high-pitched voice. This means that they would practice public speech so to learn how to filter their inner emotions when they were externalized. In addition to that, so as to be taken seriously, a low-pitched voice would be appropriate to use in public assemblies and signifies authority.\
The female version of this practice was perceived more as a way for men to silence women when they were loud or screamed from pain or pleasure. Because they weren't able to control themselves by nature, this inability was related to animal and 'primitive' human behaviors. Silencing women, the female ‘sophrosyne’, had been an object of legislative arrangements in the ancient world. Women didn’t have the license to express their ‘noise’ in specific places or events, and there was also a restriction on the duration, the content and the choreography of their rituals in funerals so that they wouldn’t create chaos and delirium. Silencing, today, has also to do with the interruption of women's voice when they express an argument in a dialogue. There was a way to cure the women and city from the chaos. Normally, these unpleasant female tendencies remained hidden from the men’s view because they were deemed annoying, non-human and disorderly. But in Dionysian festivals the task of one selected woman would be to discharge the unspeakable things on behalf of the city, in a practice which was called ‘aischrologia’, that lead to ‘katharsis’, which means the purification of the soul. She was free to express all these weird noises but only then and for the benefit of society. ‘Aischrologia’ seems similar to the therapeutic practice of hypnosis on hysterical women by Freud, who aspired to resurrect this ancient idea. Their emotions, and unspeakable things, were polluting them inside, and employing a ‘talking cure’ or in other words, ‘katharsis’ would help them. Freud's 'talking cure' was concerned with channeling these negative emotions through politically appropriated containers, through 'speech'(Carson, 1996, pg. 132-133).
The mechanisms of marginalization of these specific modes of address are based on control and filtering. One example is the repetitive action of self-control that comes from the ancient tactic of controlling emotional exposure of one's own. Carson (1996, pg. 126) says that patriarchal thinking on emotional and ethical matters is related to ‘sophrosyne’, or self- control of the body. A man is feminized when he lets his emotions come out, and so he has to control himself. "Females blurt out a direct translation of what should be formulated indirectly" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129). It was believed that the masculine deep voice, by default, indicates self-control. So, the doctors of archaic periods would suggest exercises of oration to men to cure the damage inflicted by repeated use of a loud, high-pitched voice. This means that they would practice public speech so to learn how to filter their inner emotions when they were externalized. In addition to that, a low-pitched voice signifies authority and would be appropriate to use in public assemblies.\
The female version of this practice was perceived more as a way for men to silence women when they were loud or screamed from pain or pleasure. Because they weren't able to control themselves by nature, this inability was related to animal and 'primitive' human behaviors. Silencing women, the female ‘sophrosyne’, had been an object of legislative arrangements in the ancient world. Women didn’t have the license to express their ‘noise’ in specific places or events, and there was also a restriction on the duration, the content and the choreography of their rituals in funerals so that they wouldn’t create chaos and delirium. Silencing, today, has also to do with the interruption of women's voice when they express an argument in a dialogue. Normally, these unpleasant female tendencies remained hidden from the men’s view because they were deemed annoying, non-human and disorderly. But there was a way to cure the women and city from the chaos. In Dionysian festivals, the task of one selected woman would be to discharge the unspeakable things on behalf of the city, in a practice which was called ‘aischrologia’, that lead to ‘katharsis’, which means the purification of the soul. She was free to express all these weird noises but only then and for the benefit of society. ‘Aischrologia’ seems similar to the therapeutic practice of hypnosis on hysterical women by Freud, who aspired to resurrect this ancient idea. Their emotions, and unspeakable things, were polluting them inside, and employing a ‘talking cure’ or in other words, ‘katharsis’ would help them. Freud's 'talking cure' was concerned with channeling these negative emotions through politically appropriated containers, through 'speech'(Carson, 1996, pg. 132-133).
