Summary

In Voice Engine, 2021, Rosa Barba further explores ideas that undergo perpetual transformation of images and their translation through sound. The work destabilizes the old hierarchy of cinema components, freeing them up from their original use and letting them interact in new and unforeseen ways. Voice Engine resonates with Barba’s sculptural approach to film and the relation between the work and the viewer. At Kunsthal, the voices of choristers from Rotterdam power a set of projectors. Their song is a new, unique composition closely aligned to the film material. The choristers activate the 16mm and 35mm projectors with the various frequencies of their voices. Here, light and sound can respond unexpectedly to one another using the analogue footage and the timbre and power of analogue voices.