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Transmitting Ugly Things
Related to "The monstrosity..." opening the hollow cavity
What ugly things
Carson in her text explains how the direct mode of address of these women's voices was annoying for the patriarchal society. A woman would expose her inside facts that are supposed to be private data. The dark side and fear of death, blood the female body, "By projections and leakages of all kinds- somatic, vocal, emotional, sexual- females expose or expend what should be kept in" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129). Examples of these facts would be emotions that reveal pleasure or pain either from sexual encounters from before or the birth of a child. This direct continuity between the inside and outside was a threat for the human nature and society as it was not filtrated through the rational toll of human, '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 (text of Kanaveli).
As I described in "Monstrosity" one ugly form of address was an utterance, a high-pitched cry, called ‘ololyga’ and it is a ritual practice of women sometimes in important daily moments like death and the birth of a child. In their rituals women were also talking ugly and bad things. These unpleasant tendencies of them had to stay hidden from the men’s view. But in Dionysian festivals the task of one selected woman would be to discharge the unspeakable things on behalf of the city, that was called ‘aischrologia’ leading to ‘katharsis’.‘Aischrologia’ seems similar to the therapeutical practice of hypnosis by Freud on hysterical women. Their emotions, the unspeakable things, were polluting their inside and ‘talking cure’ or otherwise ‘katharsis’ would help them. A more recent one is 'hysteria', introduced by Freud, that expresses the psychic events within the woman's body aischrologia and unspeakable things in charge of the city pg.132-133 pg. 134 kaminada "untoward event"
Alternative ways of communication hidden in the private domains have been created in response to the exclusion of speech in public. Gossip, for example, "provides subordinated classes with a mode of communication beyond an official public culture from which they are excluded" (The Gossip, 2017, p.61). It is more an attempt to claim and exchange knowledge when there is no platform for them.
Talkativness/ gossiping aimless conversation, example of Alkaios the sory of Plutarch (Carson, 1996, pg. 130)
For feminists in the early 20th century the speech in public is externalizing the personal violence and suppression of women.
Streaming media in relation to continuity
In the ancient medical and anatomical theory women had two mouths, the upper and the lower, connected through a neck. The lips of both of them guarded the “hollow cavity” (Carson, 1996, pg. 131) and they should remain closed. Female is associated with the bad things of the collective memory. Freud would cure that by channeling these negative emotions through politically appropriated containers. Having two mouths that speak simultaneously is confusing and embarrassing and this creates ‘kakophony’.
streaming media in relation to voice and gender streaming-> sense of liveness streaming and continuity unalterated speech of radio broadcasting and direct (Ernst, pg. 104) - non controlled speech by female bodies (like hysteria and aischrologia, ololyga)
other essay?
radio attempts Radio pirates/amateurs and antennas. Reaching the invisible other or being that invisible other. Practices of establishing multiple ways of spreading the voice in different spaces. The activation of those spaces as public forums. Listening to ‘invisible’ subjectivities.
feminist futurotopias women in technology
The mediation of the voice as detachment of the speaker. “the mediating role of all kinds of media that detach voice from its physical proprietor and enable its circulation in places and contexts in which physical bodies may not have access. (Panopoulos)
The technologies/media/tools/practices that relate the embodied and the distant voice enhance the presence of the person carrying it or turns against her/him.
Bibliography
- Inside/ Media: Voices of the Absent, Antinomies of Transmission
- Rose Gibbs, Speech Matters: Violence and the Feminist Voice (2016)
- Federici, S. B. (2014) Caliban and the witch. 2., rev. ed. New York, NY: Autonomedia.
- Ernst, W. (2016) ‘Experiencing Time as Sound’, in Chronopoetics. London ; New York: Rli, pp. 99–121 (102-111).