Opening Speech for
Series of Vulnerable Arrangements – Shadowless Voice over Three (excerpt)
2008

Two local actors (Marina Aparico, Igor de Quadra)

Symmetric Inequality, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, December 18, 2008

Voice I

Ladies and gentleman,
My name is Haegue Yang.
It’s nice to have you here tonight.
I don’t know most of you,
so I thank you for coming.
Because you come with blind expectations.
I truly believe in blindness,
it saves one’s possibilities of knowing.
Remaining consciously to know less.
Unlearning thoroughly.

I won’t explain my work through this speech.
This speech is intended to penetrate the microphone.
Entering it to move one’s voice through the air.

While voice is a sound of yearning, movement is an act of wandering.

I am interested in this translation:
the translation between voice and movement.

Here, translation seems to be an act of coupling–
a coupling of two inherently incomplete halves.
They are both fundamentally incomplete,
so they can build a couple without being completed.

Voice II

Well, I dare attempt to speak in front of you tonight,
creating an occasion to mobilize my voice,
to let my voice perform.

Voice is regarded as something personal, isn’t it?
But does voice mean just a throat to you?
Or does it mean a personality?

(…)

Voice I

Communal space and its localization is what I am interested in.
No, I have to say what the inner workings are.
If ever a communal space could be imagined,
then what would be its inner life?
Its core, I mean.

Whenever it comes down to communication with a public,
all often turns into a neutral firm face.
No tears to hold back, nor heart beating to calm down.
Communication in public is not against intimacy,
but intimacy is not always the same as privacy.

Using your voice,
meaning mobilizing your intimacy toward others,
but without telling a story.
Showing directly the empty space
where your voice comes from,
nothing but an empty hole.

Is this speech a manual for the piece I have created here in Bilbao?
Well, as you like–

I just desired to reveal how I arrived at this place.
This place of voice over various topologies, even inner topologies.
Where things remain soundless,
but with the presence of voice.
A space of resonance.
No picture drawn here.
No story told.
We have forgotten the boundary where the story begins and the picture ends.

Voice II

(…)

I often run from room to room,
even forgetting to pee, so I run again.
I often forget to cut my fingernails,
then suddenly realize how untidy I am.
Dirty and untidy.
Not presentable…
Like a homeless person who wears his/her unpresentableness outside.

My work has no shadow.
Because it’s full without any negative space around it.

While I am traveling,
I fall asleep in a hidden corner of the exhibition,
into a very sweet sleep.

Lovers deep in love often live isolated from the world.
They are so busy with their impossible attempt to get closer to each other.
The world is forgotten by them.
No, the world presents itself differently than before.
Presence of indifference.

(…)

Voice I

(…)

Voice II

I was questioning myself–What have I got to say so urgently?
What do I desire to say?
Can I address everyone?
Who are they all?
My question seems to be echoing,
returning to me like a boomerang.
Echoing all alone is loneliness.
It feels liberating, yet it remains lonely inside me.
Aloneness is important but needs to be taken seriously.

I wish to transmit an immediate and urgent voice of mine to you tonight.
I am ashamed to be so desperate all the time.
Just hoping that there are some who can endure it.

Thanks for your attention.

Exhibition history

Symmetric Inequality, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain, 2008

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