Not Strictly Speaking: The Disembodied Voice with Prem Sahib and Felicia Atkinson

Somerset House Podcast

What does it mean to use the voice of others within a performance, text or recording? In this episode of Not Strictly Speaking, we look at the ways in which the voice is used both in service of power, and as a way of reclaiming agency.
Prem Sahib’s new sound performance for Assembly, Alleus, takes a speech by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and renders it into a new form through layers of processing and repetition, suggesting the idea of a curse or malediction. Resisting the idea that one hostile voice can speak for the many, Prem explores how political rhetoric can speak on behalf of others, and take possession of bodies at a distance.
Composer and sound artist Felicia Atkinson, who has composed the sound across the podcast series, considers the boundaries between thought and speech, looking at how recorded speech and text can intertwine. Felicia’s work with voice plays with space, distance and found sound, inviting the everyday into her recordings. In this episode, she discusses the role the voice plays within her work, the writers who live within her and how the recorded voice can be slippery and shapeshifting.
Alleus by Prem Sahib was co-commissioned and presented by the Roberts Institute of Art and Somerset House Studios as part of Assembly, 2024.
Not Strictly Speaking Series
The voice is the first sound we encounter and the first instrument we learn to play, we are subject to the disembodied voice of politicians while the communal voice is raised in protest. In conjunction with this year’s Assembly at Somerset House, this 3 part podcast series explores different manifestations of the voice and how it informs our ways of thinking.
Each episode follows one artist featured in the 2024 programme, as they unpack their work with the voice in dialogue with another artist. Vocalist and composer Elaine Mitchener is joined by the pioneer of extended vocal technique Joan La Barbara to explore the voice as an instrument, looking at how the human voice can channel meaning without words. Artist Prem Sahib plays with the shape shifting nature of political speech and its potential to inhabit other bodies alongside composer Felicia Atkinson on the mercurial nature of recording, while the vocal work of sound artist Vivienne Griffin is placed in dialogue with artist Helen Cammock on the concept of the voice as a site of resistance.
The sound for the series is composed by French composer and sound artist Felicia Atkinson who crafts a series of bespoke sound commissions for each episode.
Commissioned by Somerset House Studios
Producer - Alannah Chance
Exec Producer - Eleanor Ritter-Scott
Series Composer - Felicia Atkinson
Mix - Harry Murdoch
Assembly was supported by PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund for Organisations, John S Cohen Foundation, Kitmapper, The Wire Magazine and Goethe Institute London.