Her work, taking the form of sound and text-based installations, probes the voice as a tool of emancipation and alienation in times of hyper-connectivity. The feminine voice has always been associated with care the voice of emotional or domestic space , summons prophecy, Pythie or hysteria. Commodified by the current all-pervading productivity, the voice becomes entangled with the machine, to enter then the service sectorβin the form of intelligent voice personnel such as GPS, smart speakers, voicemail.
In an era of anonymization of speech Twitter, Instagram and of knowledge Wikipedia , of an erotisized disincarnation of the feminine voice podcasts, dating apps , the latter is approached by Lippard by embodied means. For her first major solo show in France, the artist proposes an experience as a quest for empowerment. Language is a skin explores the notion of anonymity, spearhead of the digital economy which is here juxtaposed against that of the visitor.
How can one speak to an audience without lumping it together into a homogenous group? The exhibition also investigates standardization of affects and allowed incapacity to say, for the human body or the machine. It puts in play the disobjectification of the artwork as much as that of the feminine body, in the time of a fourth wave of feminism.
Through the display of our own planned obsolescence, Hanne Lippard invites us to rethink the exhibition as a utopic space, that of a possible emancipation or brave space, a space aknowledging diference and fostering dialogue, in a world in which one must give a voice.
Accompanied by a detective, Heintz published a small ad in the British newspaper The Sun searching namesakes of the main character of the book, Winston Smith. The artist received responses from 40 men, of which six accepted to meet him. The exhibition introduces the research material of the investigation and reveals the processβa collection of notes, plans, scouting maps, and investigation tools is presented on panels.
