Voz Mal 

As part of the Night of the Museums, MACBA pursues its attempt to subvert the drama of its rooms, begun with Prelude: Poetic Intention, with the staging of Voz Mal (2012–2017), by the artist Jaume Ferrete. This is a performance added to the collection in 2024 and reoriented in this staging under the direction of Ferrete himself. For the first time, the performing role is given to Frances Ribes Renshaw, who takes on the challenge of paying Voz Mal in 2025.

Voz Mal activates the imagination and devices of truth associated with the voice. What positions of enunciation and other ideological mechanisms of the voice run through us? Approached like the different pieces of music in a concert, it plays with the masculinisation of the voice affected by Margaret Thatcher to make herself more respected in a markedly male public context. It also plays with the so-called “human microphone”, a collectivising vocal technique used in the Occupy Wall Street movement; and with the oral history of synthetic voices, among other linguistic and vocal situations.

As Ferrete himself explains, “Voz Mal was created thinking of the notion of ‘ideologies of the voice’ which Amanda Weidman defined like this: ‘Ideologies of the voice are culturally-constructed ideas about voice, including theories about the relationship between vocal qualities and character, gender or other social categories; where voice comes from; its status in relation to writing or recorded sound; the relationship between voice and the body; what constitutes a ‘NATURAL’ voice; and who we should allow to speak and how.’” 

this activity is part of

Experience the museums’ big party at MACBA, night and day! 

activity

17.05.2025 – 18.05.2025

participants

Jaume Ferrete

Barcelona, 1980

Frances Ribes Renshaw