xxxiiib-4. “In order to ghost on the binary body, to abandon it as a failed idea, we must step back and look at the world as a body, an assemblage that has been constructed. The body, like the world, is a tool in and of itself.”

—Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, 2020

This installation is based on Samuel Beckett’s play Not I (1972), translated into French by the author in 1973 (Pas moi). A disembodied mouth spews a torrent of nearly unintelligible words from a height of about three metres above an otherwise pitch-black stage. Both free and dissociated, Mouth insistently narrates her stream of consciousness in the third person (“who? … no! … she! …”) as she recounts the origins of her muteness, her stifled suffering, and the buzzing of her incessant thoughts.

The series Stage Directions for a Mouth, of which select elements are presented here, is a choreography for a mouth that manifests resistance. Howes offers alternative modes of agency when verbal expression is impossible, lost, insufficient, or repressed. Metal fills the void of this mouth’s deaf cry. Tangible, observable, heavy objects are among the physical manifestations of this silence. Could they be used as weapons?

Howes is inspired by non-violent forms of protest such as banging on pots and pans, a tradition that dates back to 19th century France. More recently, the practice was performed during the Algerian war (1954–1962), in Latin America in the 1970s (cacerolazos), and in Québec during the student strike of 2012.

Exhibition History

• The Time it Takes
  2024
  Musee d'art de Joliette
  Joliette, QC

Related Publication

• The Time it Takes
  2024
  Ed.: Charlotte Lalou Rousseau, Guest Curator
  Musée d'art de Joliette
• Scores for Daily Living
  2020
  Ed.: Mark Soo
  K Verlag
• Ankyloglossia (n.tongue-tie)
  2014
  Ed.: Emma Waltraud Howes & Franziska Morlok
  Co-published by K. Verlag and Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH.
• Ankyloglossia (n. tongue-tie) e-book
  2015
  Ed.: Emma Waltraud Howes & Franziska Morlok
  Rimini Berlin