February 18 – May 22, 2011, at Villa Arson
The Encyclopedia of Speech is a collective project aiming to comprehensively grasp the diversity of oral forms. What is common between sound poetry, film dialogues, sports commentary, a philosophical conference, rap, a voicemail message, TV game shows, religious sermons, a sitcom dubbed in French, political speeches, an auction, the babble of an eighteen-month-old child, a shamanic incantation, theatrical declamations, a lawyer’s plea, cartoons, an advertising voice, everyday conversations?
Since September 2007, the Encyclopedia of Speech has been collecting, cataloging, and showcasing all sorts of spoken recordings. For the first time, this research takes the form of an exhibition in the square gallery of the Villa Arson art center. The entire sound collection of the Encyclopedia is literally laid out. Visitors create their own listening journey by picking sounds classified according to various speech phenomena such as: cadences, repetitions, folds, choralities, residues, compressions, punctuations, saturations, indexes, spacings, responsibilities, emphases…
Alongside the exhibition, the Encyclopedia of Speech presents on April 15 and 16, then on May 21, in various spaces of Villa Arson, most of the shows, performances or interventions produced from its collection: The Choir of the Encyclopedia, Saturations, Parliament, Marabout Conference, Choralities II, as well as various Games…
The Encyclopedia of Speech is driven by poets, visual artists, musicians, directors, filmmakers, choreographers, etc. It currently includes Grégory Castéra, David Christoffel, Frédéric Danos, Nicolas Fourgeaud, Joris Lacoste, Emmanuelle Lafon, Pierre-Yves Macé, Olivier Normand, Kerwin Rolland, Nicolas Rollet, Esther Salmona. Sono-System.com developed the technology to realize the sound concept of this Encyclopedia of Speech exhibition.
Curator: Éric Mangion, director of the National Center for Contemporary Art at Villa Arson
Graphic design and development: g.u.i (Nicolas Couturier, Bachir Soussi-Chiadmi)
Guest collectors: Constantin Alexandrakis, Franck Leibovici, Olivier Quintyn
The Collection exhibition is part of the research and creation workshop (ARC) LittOral conducted in collaboration with the Villa Arson art school (coordinated by Patrice Blouin, Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, and Joseph Mouton).
