Voice Signatures traces a path through a large collection of found images depicting the mechanization and automatization of writing and speaking.

Bodies are measured, trained and modulated, rote instructions are ingrained and incorporated, textual production is normalized by repetitious routines, language acquisition and reproduction methods are standardized and regulated, writing becomes automatic. In a second movement, mechanical devices force the voice to produce its own graphical representations, physiological studies implement techniques to quantify and mathematize the inner workings of the larynx, the tongue and the wind pipes, speaking is analyzed, modeled and reembodied by various technical devices.

Woven into this visual narrative is the flip side of this corporeal rationalization : writhing, bound and contorted bodies, ectoplasmic ooze, and voice boxes, slate writing, planchettes and other spirit technologies for intercommunication betwixt two worlds. At times, these disparate threads converge as representations of the automatic inscription, playback or transmission of disembodied intelligence, in the form of machines or as mediators - students, operators, mediums, secretaries – relays in a system of earthly and ethereal communications.

This book is part of the exhibition Média Médiums, co-curated with Gwenola Wagon, for which a collection of twenty books, designed with Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, was published.