Vocal Behaviour

The project Vocal Behaviour began after the reading of Michał Libera’s essay Counter-Eavesdropping*, and personal experiences of living in a block of flats, where sound, traveling through architectural divisions, was blurring the boundaries between the private and the common, between hearing and listening.

The installation is dedicated to experiencing the human voice both as a timbre, and as a carrier of information. Thinking about contexts, regulations, and dependencies emerging in social system, I focus on shifts in interpersonal communication — what evolves in silence, remains unspoken or unasked. A subtle sonic structure consists of unvoiced sounds and verbal messages. It includes classifications of terms such as „whisper” and „shout”, understood as timbres, social gestures, and conscious decisions. Spoken in Polish, the definitions are accompanied by audio snippets containing recognizable sounds of verbal communication. These information excerpts encourage more attentive listening, eavesdropping, to capture messages amidst the fragmented timbre.

A curatorial text by Annika Reketat:
Vocal Behaviour begins with experiences of acoustic permeability in everyday residential environments: voices passing through walls, ceilings, and floors blur the boundary between private and shared space. The workdraws on Michał Libera’s essay Counter-Eavesdropping (YEAR) as well as lived experience in multi-occupancy housing, where hearing is always entangled with unintended listening.
The installation approaches the human voice as both sound and carrier of information. Spoken definitions, fragmented utterances, and short audio sequences form a composition in which terms such as “whisper” or“shouting” are articulated not only as acoustic phenomena, but also as social gestures and situational decisions. Between speech and noise, a field emerges in which attention continually shifts between listening and overhearing, sound and meaning.
The leak is not located in the walls alone, but in the social relations they structure. Where information becomes audible unintentionally, it circulates beyond its intended address and escapes the control of its origin. Between hearing, listening, and overhearing, responsibilities for what is heard—and what follows from it—are continuously redistributed.  

*Counter-Eavesdropping (2012) — an essay by Michał Libera published in the book: Making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers.

set:
2026 — Genezarethkirche — as a part of the Leaking Matters group exhibition curated by Annika Reketat. The exhibition took place within the 48NK Perspectives program.
2026 — Kiezraum auf dem Dragonareal Berlin — as a part of the be my guest, but don’t group exhibition curated by Lukas Treiber Yapici
2025 — KUNSTPUNKT BERLIN – Raum für aktuelle Kunst — as a part of the HELLHÖREN group exhibition by Errant Sound’s artsits
2023 — Krajská galéria v Prešove (SK) — as a part of the Nedomov / UNHOME** group exhibition curated by Eduard Klena

**The Nedomov / UNHOME exhibition was organized by MyMamy and Wave cultural centre for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.

photo credits:
Miłosz Szczęsny
Marek Rohal