Philippe Parreno’s ‘Voices’ transforms Haus der Kunst into a resonating space, producing an active acoustic dialogue where voices control and interact with the exhibition. ‘Voices’ mutates and evolves within the neoclassical architecture of the galleries, overriding its inherent symmetry by establishing triangular and helical geometries. In ‘Voices’, Parreno explores the power of language by introducing ∂A, a new language crafted through machine learning, and through German TV news anchor Susanne Daubner, who has lent her voice to the exhibition. This language, merging news authenticity with Parreno’s imaginative realms, infuses the exhibition with an uncanny sense of truth. ‘Voices’ invites viewers into an evolving organism where every voice, object, and landscape becomes part of an infinite resonance. This transformation unfolds in tandem with a distant location through a new film entitled El Almendral. This mirrored dynamic links Munich to a desert landscape in Spain, where voices, words, and data flow between the two spaces. These twin environments forma permanent exchange of events and information, creating a unified resonance across geographical boundaries.

El Almendral transmits spectral data from a remote property in Spain, located in the Tabernas desert in Almería, directly to Munich. This film is not merely a visual projection, but an extension of the exhibition that integrates nature, technology and art. El Almendral functions both as a film and a living landscape, where modifications to the environment are seen as extensions rather than mere additions. Through El Almendral, moments in Spain are turned into eternities in Munich. The landscape becomes fiction, where its unity exists only within the film’s diegetic space. Each frame of the film extends and folds the physical terrain, creating a spectral flow that binds the two spaces together. This infinite image has no beginning or end, coexisting with the terrain in real-time. The exhibition emphasises process over resolution, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in a perpetual transformation where time and space dissolve into one.

Data, images and sounds are collected and streamed continuously to create the cinematic landscape of El Almendral, reflecting the evolving essence of the desert as it changes with the seasons. Utilising eco-acoustic technologies and biodata, the film aims to capture the often-inaudible sounds of invisible spectres. El Almendral functions akin to an antenna, constantly attuned to its surroundings, receiving and processing sensory data to understand its environment comprehensively.
The project also introduces a legal framework through the establishment of the “El Almendral” company, which asserts the land’s right to self-ownership and proposes non-human rights.

Philippe Parreno. Voices, Exhibition view, Haus der Kunst München, 2024 Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Tino Sehgal has created Situation, a new work that introduces direct human interaction into the resonating environment of Parreno’s ‘Voices’. Dancer-singers engage visitors in minimalist, participatory encounters, transforming each interaction into a spontaneous moment of resonance. Sehgal’s piece emphasises the human element in an otherwise technologically driven exhibition, adding another layer to the choreography of voices, data, and space. The dancer-singers control the exhibition’s elements with their voices. The words, fragmented yet potent, arrange the world around the dancer-singer, moving objects, sounds, and lights across the interconnected gallery spaces. The voice of Susanne Daubner answers their utterances, forming an ongoing exchange where the environment speaks back. Together, these voices create an echo that transforms the exhibition into a landscape that expands beyond the immediate architecture of Munich.

Elements of the exhibition that respond to the voices include a series of 25 blind lamps that emit heat, stopping when the room reaches a specific temperature; mechanical installations that rise and fall, generating soundscapes from environmental data; and privacy-glass showcases that blink, alternately revealing and concealing their contents in response to electrical currents. This interactivity extends to the spectral data from El Almendral, as the elements in Munich respond to the unseen flow of voices and sounds from the film. The voice becomes not a means of communication but a structuring force, creating resonance through its form. Drawing on Jacques Lacan’s objet petit a, the voice is both intimate and alien, an acousmatic presence that escapes meaning while making it possible.