A Term For Using Speech

performance, Zoom
2020

During the performance, I encouraged anonymous participants to send me sentences, words, lines and slogans via the ZOOM application, which, being devoid of original content, were then spoken aloud by me. I became a tool for using language, a living synthesiser of speech for texts sent by anonymous viewers. An important element of performance was verbal activity, which I consider to be one of the most important forms of human activity. Speech plays an important role in interpersonal communication (mutual relations between the speaker and the hearer). Speech is a social product that is biologically, psychologically, and socially conditioned. It has the power to influence.
In recent times, the concept of freedom of speech has been very easy to grapple with. It has become a bargaining chip also in political discussions. Can a word, in the name of freedom, become a violation of another person’s freedom? Is the limit of language also the limit of our thinking about freedom? Are the elements of language, its phonic expression and graphic notation, in conflict with each other? In the performance “A Term for Using Speech”, I examine the performativity of language as well as its political character and potential.

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