Wild Sounds: Program One

In the history of film in the West, the voices of men speak, allied with reason and language. Women’s voices, meanwhile, tend to sound, though they do so across a variety of registers: in music and song, from the disembodied voices of technological devices, through the mimicry of social norms, and through the politicized voices that shape constituencies and resist oppression. Just as the technical term “wild sound” connotes a sound that’s recorded independently of the image, the wild sounds collected in this series escape social and filmic convention—charting the woman’s voice as it creates an alternative space where meaning is negotiated and generated anew.

These two screenings, curated by Chris Stults and Genevieve Yue, are drawn from a larger series organized by Flaherty NYC.

Technology often “speaks” in the voices of women, from virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa to the affectless tones of automated phone services. The various technological devices in this program, in turn, reshape what women’s voices might sound like, such as in absurd text-to-speech computer applications. In many of the short films in this program, the voices of technology and mass media alternately torment, inspire, and indelibly shape the lives of the filmmakers. Featuring videos by Gunvor Nelson, Elisa Giardina Papa, Nicolás Pereda, Courtney Stephens, and Pedro Chaskel and Pablo Salas. (program approx. 70 mins., video)