Collectable

VOICES saying VOICES. The oral archive of Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas

The Collectables of the Year Thirty

The work of Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas takes the form of projects in which they explore the conflicts and contradictions thrown up by the economic, social and political conditions in the former Soviet countries. A particularly notable characteristic of their work is that each project is born and develops as part of a process involving cooperation with groups and experts from other fields (such as music, architecture or psychiatry). In Ruta Remake (2002-2005), the archive is formed by recorded voices from radio programmes, films and commercials. These recordings are analysed in interviews with Lithuanian women engaged in different fields relating to oral culture: writers, linguists, musicologists, singers and activists who study the voice. Ruta is the name of a plant (rue) that is popular both as a symbol of femininity and virginity and for its well-known capacity to induce abortion. In the project, a drawing of the plant serves as the motif for creating the score/matrix for an interactive instrument or device known as the Theramidi. It is a synthesiser that operates through an interface installed on a table, responding to the shadows cast by spectators as they move their hands over two sensors.