I always read by listening to the text

I always read by listening to the text, curator Martina Copley, 2014, Platform, Melbourne

Martina Copley (curator), Renee Cosgrave, Anna Finlayson, Stephen Giblett, Heidi Holmes, Lou Hubbard, Bridie Lunney, Andrew McQualter, Sanné Mestrom, Viv Miller, Lynette Smith, Elke Varga 

Photography by Theresa Harrison 

In a series of false starts, disarticulations and soundings, artists work with an exteriorized form of inner speech in spaces conceived for viewing. A threat to coherence and fluency, the lingering stutter is the percussive space of ‘words and their in-betweens’ (Celan). A hindrance that moves and dances, the stutter bypasses language, or at least the communicative properties attributed to it, in favour of rhythmic and sonic play. When thought of as a ‘highjacking of speech’ (Deleuze); or as ‘the foreigner from within which rhythms you’ (Blanchot); the stutter is a sideways move that allows for a particular kind of attention to our inner murmurings. Mobilising the stutter, I always read by listening to the text is more of an ensemble than an exhibition, to be read ‘as heard’ by passing viewers.