Something that speaks

Taking as its starting point the notion of schizophonia, this paper considers the effects of mediation of the voice. Schizophonia was intended to denote a state of experienced confusion that followed from a distortion of the spatiotemporal conditions of experience caused by media technology. The article asks how these effects are to be considered in a situation characterised by a ubiquitous presence of mediation. Based on these considerations the paper presents an analysis of the work Blanche-Neige Lucie by the French artist Pierre Huyghe. Huyghe’s work has explored the often blurred line between fiction and reality and how different accounts of reality intertwine in our experience and memory. In Blanche-Neige Lucie Huyghe explores the voice in relation to the format of film, particularly the figure of dubbing, and how the medial conditions allow for a certain confusion with regard to the questions of identity and memory.