**Agonism** Agonism (from Greek ἀγών agon, "struggle") is a political theory that emphasizes the potentially positive aspects of certain (but not all) forms of political conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflict, but seeks to show how people might accept and channel this positively. For this reason, agonists are especially concerned with debates about democracy. The tradition is also referred to as agonistic pluralism.\
**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 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)\
**Individual empowerment**\
**Invididual/Collective**\
**Liveness**\
**Mediate** Occupy a middle position\
**Mediated Voice**\
**Orality** is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy and writing are unfamiliar to most of the population\
**Past/Present Voice**\
**Public Space** is the space that hosts collective decision making activities, democratic processes and freedom of speech. Though many contemporary public spaces are controlled spaces that exclude many modes of address. Big corporations and states are defining the public space and it is more a space of consuming and public access instead of a free space for expression. This space refers to either physical or digital (Sassen...). There is a big separation between private and public spaces that has been established since the ancient philosophy.\
**Public Speech** is the ability to talk in public about individual or collective concerns\
**Speech** is the rational human way of expressing personal stories, opinions. It is what differs human from animals according to the patriarchal principles on human nature (Carson...)\
**Speech Act** A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture.\
**Streaming Media** A real-time process. Delivery systems inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps/hot media) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs/cold media). Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time, as events happen, much as live television broadcasts its contents over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.\
**Streaming** 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.\
**Transmitting** is the act of passing, communicating, sending, to spread from one to another\
**Voice** 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.
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 capablities overpass these oppositions of gender, nationality, culture, space, technology and power relations. This research seeks to unravel these possibilities of voice, with the intention to explore democratic ways of communication that embraces excluded forms of address. It deals with the 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 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.
My ongoing research lead me to the public forums, speech, and the technologies that facilitate them, from a feminist perspective.
*So: what kinds of collective practice do voices make possible? How do they do this (by making space, creating the circumstances for forms of listening)? How has and does technology (mediation, amplification, streaming) expand those possibilities? And – crucially – how has gender limited and expanded those possibilities?*
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. Growing up I also found out that any form of feminine/female expression gets suppressed. 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 artistic 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:
This thesis is a series of three essays which relate to the female and collective voices, and their mediation. They address the voice as a feminist? tool for communicating, creating the conditions for forms of listening, and inhabiting/making space. Historically, some modes of address have been marginalized and shut out of the public domain. The opposition between private and public space has played an important role in gender separation. The collective voices are marginalized under the realm of the patriarchal individualistic society. The female voices are 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 Female Voices*. Technology expands the possibilities of those voices, for example by helping to their mediation and tranition/access to other places and audiences. Their engagement with media happens with an agonistic attitude, that resembles 'second orality'- a concept that Walter Ong has developed. 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. 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. They allow a direct/unfiltered continuity between the 'inside' and 'outside'of the body and this seems irational. 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. Here I will make a parallel between the technology of streaming and female continuity. I will talk about 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. Growing up, I also came accross with other forms of feminine/female expressions that get suppressed. 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. 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 artistic 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 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.
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 hunging 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, as distant voices. 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). 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 my thesis I will refer also to my current work regarding similar approaches and topics.
\pagebreak
# 1. The Monstrosity of the female voices
# 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 ...
Here I list, from the text of Anne Carson, *The Gender of Sound*, how, since ancient times, the 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 the binaries. 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
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. And here is where Tilemachos says... 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, 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 voices in public is related to madness, witchery, bestiality, disorder, death and chaos. And thus has to stay hidden from sight.
@ -48,9 +45,14 @@ Today women in public life worry if their voices are too light or high to comman
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.\
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).
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### Shut out of the public: Opposition 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. Dichotomy of public and private...\
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. For the purpose of making their own radio programme and include their voices in airwaves they changed their gender of their voice. Their female body accepts a distorion in male. *Being somehow both interior and exterior, of a body and not of a body? Live, embodied and (always potentially) mediated, disembodied?*
Ancient Greek thinkers had set the gender binary and its reflection in space. The very first example of silecing of women indicated in literature, is in *Odyssey* where the young son of Odysseus, Telemachus, is in the great hall of the palace and describes the difficulties of Greeks warriors to return home. Then his mother,Penelope, asks him to change subject, because it is sad, and he says to her that speech is a man's business and that she should return to her private room and do her own business (Beard, 2017). This is how Western society starts with women's voices being excluded from public sphere. 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. Dichotomy of public and private...\
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. For the purpose of making their own radio programme and include their voices in airwaves they changed their gender of their voice. Their female body accepts a distortion in male. *Being somehow both interior and exterior, of a body and not of a body? Live, embodied and (always potentially) mediated, disembodied?*
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## 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.
@ -106,7 +108,7 @@ The mediation of marginalized forms of voicing is happening in conditions that e
## What ugly things, and the medium
Marginalized people vocalize things that are unacceptable for the society, unspeakable, politically incorrect, emotionally overwhelming, disorderly. They are too personal, too emotional, too embodied. In *The Gender of Sound*, Anne Carson explains how the direct mode of address of women's voices has been an annoyance for patriarchal society since the time of Ancient Greece. A woman would expose her inside truths that were supposed to be kept private. For example, emotions that reveal pleasure or pain either from sexual encounters, or the birth of a child. "By projections and leakages of all kinds- somatic, vocal, emotional, sexual- females expose or expend what should be kept in" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129); this reveals society's fear of death, blood, darkness, birth, the female body. This direct continuity and linkage between the inside and outside has been a threat for human nature and society as it is not filtered through the rational tool of human communication, 'speech'. It has been established that our inner desires and needs have to be expressed indirectly through speech, and in the case of women, through their men’s speech or as Eliana Kanaveli says, "the interests of women are represented by men and are a partial expression of patriarchy" (Kanaveli, 2012). Through speech and language people can construct their identities and claim their own presence and voice in public. There is a connection of sound and voice with externalizing our inside subjectivities, that remain hidden. One of the principal characteristics of sound is its unique relationship to interiority. According to Walter Ong (2002, pg. 69) "[t]his relationship is important because of the interiority of human consciousness and of human communication itself". Human consciousness is internalized and inaccessible to outside people. Hearing a sound or voice can expose inside structures of something or somebody without violating it. Sound, in contrast to vision, comes from any direction to the human ear and in primary oral culture was affecting deeply the way humans perceived their own existence and presence. Thus, the voice mediated trough the body transfers the inside resonance, that is connected to consciousness and physical elements, to the outside, contributing to human communication. \
One perceived 'ugly' form of address in Ancient Greece was an utterance, a high-pitched cry, called ‘ololyga’ which was a female ritual practice. This is still practiced in Greece and the Middle East, and it is related to mourning. In their rituals women would also say offensive things in the context of 'aischrologia'; a process whereby woman, acting as proxy, would freely discharge unspeakable things on behalf of the city. A more recent form of monstrous articulation is 'hysteria', as theorized by Freud, which connects the psychical events within a woman's body directly to the outside, her exterior behavior. The word of this disease connects to the inside of the female body as it "derives from 'hystera', Greek for uterus, and ancient doctors attributed a number of female maladies to a starved or misplaced womb"(Kinetz, 2006). The illness was based on sexual deprivation, because feminine sexual pleasure was considered taboo. Freud, in difference with other psychologists, theorized it as a way the interior (unconscious) conflict would manifest in the outside world into physical symptoms, so hysterical actions were mediations. It seems that the feminine consciousness through these processes was accused as something evil and its communication to the outside was happening through abnormal, exaggerating physical symptoms. Females are often associated with sins and evil within the collective memory. For example, gossip is a form of address that reveals secrets that should stay hidden. It is an alternative form of communication which operates in the private domain and has been created in response to the exclusion of speech in public. Gossip "provides subordinated classes with a mode of communication beyond an official public culture from which they are excluded" (The Gossip, 2017, p.61). But even in Ancient Greece this form was undesirable; Plutarch (Carson, 1996, pg. 130) tells a story of how a secret is spread fast by women creating chaos and ruin, in contrast to men who refrain from revealing it. In contrast to this, the rational expression of speech is about restriction and self-control.\
One perceived 'ugly' form of address in Ancient Greece was an utterance, a high-pitched cry, called ‘ololyga’ which was a female ritual practice. This is still practiced in Greece and the Middle East, and it is related to mourning. In their rituals women would also say offensive things in the context of 'aischrologia'; a process whereby woman, acting as proxy, would freely discharge unspeakable things on behalf of the city. A more recent form of monstrous articulation is 'hysteria', as theorized by Freud, which connects the psychical events within a woman's body directly to the outside, her exterior behavior. The word of this disease connects to the inside of the female body as it "derives from 'hystera', Greek for uterus, and ancient doctors attributed a number of female maladies to a starved or misplaced womb"(Kinetz, 2006). The illness was based on sexual deprivation, because feminine sexual pleasure was considered taboo. Freud, in difference with other psychologists, theorized it as a way the interior (unconscious) conflict would manifest in the outside world into physical symptoms, so hysterical actions were mediations. It seems that the feminine consciousness through these processes was accused as something evil and its communication to the outside was happening through abnormal, exaggerating physical symptoms. Females are often associated with sins and evil within the collective memory. For example, gossip is a form of address that reveals secrets that should stay hidden. It is an alternative form of communication which operates in the private domain and has been created in response to the exclusion of speech in public. Gossip "provides subordinated classes with a mode of communication beyond an official public culture from which they are excluded" (The Gossip, 2017, p.61). But even in Ancient Greece this form was undesirable; Plutarch (Carson, 1996, pg. 130) tells a story of how a secret is spread fast by women creating chaos and ruin, in contrast to men who refrain from revealing it. In contrast to this, the rational expression of speech is about restriction and self-control. In *Odussey* authoritative public speech is "not the kind of chatting, prattling or gossip that anyone – women included, or especially women – could do" (Beard, 2017).\
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
@ -142,7 +144,7 @@ Looking back in time, ancient thinking about on the female voices- as an 'ugly'
- Ελιάνα Καναβέλη (2012) ‘Φύλο, φόβος και δημόσιος λόγος - Βαβυλωνία | Πολιτικό Περιοδικό’, Βαβυλωνία, 25 February. Available at: https://www.babylonia.gr/2012/02/25/filo-fovos-ke-dimosios-logos/ (Accessed: 26 November 2018).
- ‘Saskia Sassen’ (2012) archive public, 12 May. Available at: https://archivepublic.wordpress.com/texts/saskia-sassen/ (Accessed: 5 March 2019).
- 667: Wartime Radio (2019) This American Life. Available at: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/667/transcript (Accessed: 5 February 2019).
- Benjamin, W. (2008) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 01 edition. Translated by J. A. Underwood. London: Penguin.
- Beard, M. (2017) Women & Power: A Manifesto. 1 edition. New York: Liveright.
- Berry, D. (2011) ‘Real-Time Streams’, in The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. 2011 edition. Basingstoke New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 142–171.
- Birdsall, C. (2012) Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
- Carson, A. (1996) ‘The Gender of Sound’, in Glass, Irony and God. First Edition edition. New York: New Directions, pp. 119–142.
@ -169,6 +171,12 @@ Rochester: Destiny Books
# Reference list
**pg.?**
*Cartoon from Riana Dunkan for Punch magazine*, image, Vázquez, J. F. (2018) ‘There are None so Deaf’, in Eckhardt, J., Grounds for Possible Music: On Gender, Voice, Language, and Identity. Errant Bodies Press, pp. 18–24.\
**pg.?**
*Cartoon from Gonzalo Rocha*, image, viewed 24 March 2019, <https://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Riana-Duncan-Cartoons/G0000Bx1FqQLTU1M/I0000eHEXGJ_wImQ>.\
**pg.5**\
*A sculpture of Baubo, Greek godess of sacred and sexual humor*, image, viewed 4 March 2019, <https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-60fe5061a107c045467540251797ad86>.\
@ -190,25 +198,3 @@ Miranda Zúñiga, *The Broadcast Cart transmitting*, image, viewed 4 March 2019,
*Temporary Local Broadcast in action by artist Jack James*, image, viewed 4 March 2019, <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53dabea7e4b06489b309657a/55645642e4b0b17b146b9ebf/55645659e4b08b2ebc72bb28/1432639069240/DSC_1595.JPG?format=750w>.
# Index
**Agonism** Agonism (from Greek ἀγών agon, "struggle") is a political theory that emphasizes the potentially positive aspects of certain (but not all) forms of political conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflict, but seeks to show how people might accept and channel this positively. For this reason, agonists are especially concerned with debates about democracy. The tradition is also referred to as agonistic pluralism.\
**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 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)\
**Individual empowerment**\
**Invididual/Collective**\
**Liveness**\
**Mediate** Occupy a middle position\
**Mediated Voice**\
**Orality** is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy and writing are unfamiliar to most of the population\
**Past/Present Voice**\
**Public Space** is the space that hosts collective decision making activities, democratic processes and freedom of speech. Though many contemporary public spaces are controlled spaces that exclude many modes of address. Big corporations and states are defining the public space and it is more a space of consuming and public access instead of a free space for expression. This space refers to either physical or digital (Sassen...). There is a big separation between private and public spaces that has been established since the ancient philosophy.\
**Public Speech** is the ability to talk in public about individual or collective concerns\
**Speech** is the rational human way of expressing personal stories, opinions. It is what differs human from animals according to the patriarchal principles on human nature (Carson...)\
**Speech Act** A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture.\
**Streaming Media** A real-time process. Delivery systems inherently streaming (e.g. radio, television, streaming apps/hot media) or inherently non-streaming (e.g. books, video cassettes, audio CDs/cold media). Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time, as events happen, much as live television broadcasts its contents over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media (e.g. a video camera, an audio interface, screen capture software), an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it frequently is.\
**Streaming** 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.\
**Transmitting** is the act of passing, communicating, sending, to spread from one to another\
**Voice** 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.
