Communing with others: performing voices

This article concerns how we can use sound and listening practices to foster a different relationship with the animals in rural environments. This is done through two artworks Rapture (2014) and Flow (2019) created by the author, and how they explored ideas of voicing, translation and noise to push the human body to become more sensitised, and other to itself. In order to do so, the discussion is concerned with ideas of voice, translation, listening and nature: drawing upon the work of Voegelin (2011), Zdjelar (2009), Nancy (2007), Oliveros (2010) and Meijer (2019). Furthermore, the article explores how we communicate with others, both human and non-human, through the use of voice (singular and as part of a group). The research arises from a body of artistic work exploring translation processes through voice. It seeks to understand what it means to ‘voice’ something, to give voice to something, to utter, to express, to vocalise, and to whom we are speaking or voicing for, to and with. It questions whether we need to be understood, or if a sound is enough to gain acknowledgment of existence.