Assistance: Yola Parie. 
Audio platform / development: Toby Duckworth. 
Voice:  Willem de Wolf, Carly Wijs en Daan Alkemade
Translation / assistance: Daan Alkemade

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

Thanks to: Jessica Huber, Kate McIntosh, Stefan Kaegi, Mladen Dolar. Het Utrechts Archief, het Centraal Museum, afdeling archeologie van gemeente Utrecht, UCK, de Koster-beheerder Toos van Rijn van de Domkerk, Gilde Utrecht, Friso Wiersum, Rob van Scheers, Pianofabriek Kunstenwerkplaats Brussel, Wouter van Haaften en Jenneke Kloosterziel.


recording advice – Tito Toblerone

audio platform / development – Toby Duckworth

thanks to - Jessica Huber, Kate McIntosh, Stefan Kaegi, Mladen Dolar


Studio support from Pianofabriek kunstenwerkplaats, Brussels



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)

LEST WE

SEE


WHERE

WE ARE

Photo - Jessica Huber

by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells

Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are  Lost in a haunted wood Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. September 1, 1939 - W H Auden



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.


The kind of cafe where you can sit without being noticed.

A view onto the street.

A few old photographs of that same view.

A magnifying glass.

A sense that the future is most easily ignored.

A feeling that something needs to be said, or thought, or spoken in order to be thought.



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. An event of two halves - one indoors, the other outside in public space. Alone, we look out of the window of a cafe and compare what we see to the archive photographs on the table: from this exact vantage point, a line is gradually and pleasurably drawn into the past... until it snaps. Outside, we find ourselves in a fantasy of public speaking. We're holding a portable stereo against our chest which vibrates as an amplified voice seems to emerge and echo in the space around us. This 'binaurally projected' voice is thinking aloud, speaking 'for us' in an attempt to escape gravitation towards the past and instead somehow confront or imagine the future.


Appearing almost as an opposite to Hampton and Etchells' previous collaboration The Quiet Volume - which explored the inner voice through silent reading and whispers - 'Lest...' is concerned instead with ennuciation; thinking through speaking out loud; voice as the lever of thought. Binaural recordings and an unusual use of simple technology again combine to produce a visceral and reflective experience.

Other cities - herelest.html