Voice-Under

A Taste of Warm Fear, Traumaturgy and Promiscuous Truths

Abstract

In this essay I introduce the term voice-under, a tool I use to explore and better understand the queer potential of film. My creative practice revolves around finding ways to depict a queer reality. If the superimposed voice narrating the story is the voice-over, then what I am exploring is the voice-under: a voice of other, parallel truths. I listen to the dump and the trauma, the rubbish and chewing gum, my friends and my little toe. I listen to the warm fear. What might a film look like that depicts trauma and injuries without holding on to them? What will we hear, if we stop listening to the loudest voice? Could it make visible to us small, crawling feelings, glimpses of another world? Instead of voice being used to stand for something essentialist, I see voice as a productive concept that looks at relations and its touches. Voice-under is a term developing through my ongoing doctoral research, in the dialogue that appears between writing and workshops with actors who are co-writers and other collaborators. In this essay I try to show what a voice-under can be, by examining the process of making my “hybrid film” She Male Snails, titled Pojktanten in Swedish (2012). Further, I offer examples from my feature film Nånting måste gå sönder (Something Must Break, 2014) as well as from works by other queer film makers and trans artists like Wu Tsang, Sonja Nilsson, and Marcelo Caetanos.