“Everywhere where there is an interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy,
there is rhythm.”
- Henri Lefebvre, ‘Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life’ (1992)
Voice-Over-Voice- is the debut solo exhibition by Shazia Salam and marks the culmination of her journey on the Critical Practice Programme 2022.
Shazia attempts to keep time with the rhythms of capitalist labour. She does so by entering the workspace of a particular professional sector in the region; voice-over artists. Holding a cultural position in the audio landscape of the UAE, their voices recall familiar transmissions; either through automated messages at the end of telephone lines, polite instructions in metro stations or emphatic displays in radio commercials. Shazia delves into the rituals, processes and procedures of the voice at work.
The exhibition presents three exercises developed with voice actors during the Critical Practice Programme. The exercises engage with technological and bodily tempos such as repetition, synchronicity and lag, questioning the sort of calibration we are searching for in capitalist networks.