Where does the voice come from, and what is its destination? Human language is assumed to be universal and abstract, but is it possible to utter a single word without the body itself speaking of its inescapable materiality and unique life story?

“My parents were sparing in sharing their history, probably because it was too traumatic,” says Audrey Chen in an interview in Sound American. Her parents fled Mao Zedong’s communist regime, first to Taiwan and then to the United States. But the body bears traces of its heritage, both in the visible exterior and the unconscious interior. This organic memory, together with the chaotic impulses of a Ciat-Lonbarde synth, is the starting point for Chen’s vocal improvisations – a chain of feedback loops between fantasy and reality, flesh and circuit boards, sound and hearing.

To call Ute Wassermann a voice artist is an understatement. Her naked solo performances demonstrate that the lungs, throat, oral cavity and lips are capable of producing sounds far beyond the boundaries of what we call “voice”. This can be seen as an alienation of the voice, but perhaps it is more accurate to think of Wassermann’s art as a way of reconnecting with other parts of our bodies’ sound-producing potential – expressions that have been overshadowed by the centrality of speech and song to the cultural beings we imagine ourselves to be.