Created for Vooruit, Gent, Belgium

by Tim Etchells & Ant Hampton

archival assistance - Amsab

recording advice – Tito Toblerone

audio platform / development – Toby Duckworth

voices - Ant Hampton, Tim Etchells, Terry O’Connor

thanks to - Duncan Speakman, Anna Rispoli, Britt Hatzius, Kate McIntosh, Stefan Kaegi, Mladen Dolar

A «Second Cities – Performing Cities» Production – A European Network Operated By: Hellerau – European Center For The Arts Dresden (Ger), Kaserne Basel (Ch), Ringlokschuppen Mülheim An Der Ruhr (Ger), Tap – Théâtre Et Auditorium De Poitiers (Fr), Le Maillon, Théâtre De Strasbourg, Scène Européenne (Fr), Spring – Performing Arts Festival Utrecht (Nl), Teatr Laznia Nowa, Nowa Huta/Cracow (Pl).

With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.

Two parts: inside, outside.

To begin with you're indoors, in the emptiness of Vooruit’s huge theatre auditorium: a journey through photography and into the eyes of those looking back at us from past times. From these gazes the challenge today starts to become clear, regarding the future: stop avoiding it. If the only way of thinking the unthinkable is to speak out loud, then time now to go outside and at least imagine an articulation...

Outside, you're standing in the street holding a stereo. The voice coming out is amplified, and reverberates around you. But it’s not a ‘rant’... in fact this voice you're holding doesn't seem to be very sure of itself, openly tripping up and contradicting itself as it works through ideas and fears in real time. 

People walk by. You imagine being responsible for this voice, struggling out loud to imagine the future.

(But no-one else hears anything. The sound of the voice resonating around you is relayed binaurally to the headphones you're wearing, and made palpable via synchronised and inaudible bass tones vibrating the radio in your arms.)

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Lest We See Where We Are

is Ant Hampton’s latest in a series of 'autoteatro' works exploring voice - ignored or buried aspects of it - and the second made together with Tim Etchells. Appearing almost as an opposite to their collaboration The Quiet Volume (for 'Parallel Cities', 2010), which explored the inner voice through silent reading and whispers, Lest.. is instead concerned with speaking out loud - specifically, what Kleist called The Manufacture of Ideas while Speaking.

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Related works -

This is Not My Voice Speaking (the recorded voice)

The Quiet Volume (the reading voice, silent)

Ok Ok (the reading voice, aloud)

Hello for Dummies (the acousmatic voice)

by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells

Lest We See Where We Are is a site-specific work, a «Second Cities – Performing Cities» production, and will be shown in cities including Dresden, Gent, Utrecht, Basle and Strasbourg during 2013 - 2014

Dresden, 2012 archive site here