On episode 103 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by artist Lena Herzog. Paul and Lena talk about what Lena has been reading lately, discussing how she has found reassurance in reading Montaigne during this pandemic.
Lena tells Paul about her recent project, Last Whispers: Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and a Falling Tree. The project focuses on the voices of extinct and endangered languages and Lena talks about how much louder those voices sound to her at this moment. Finally, Lena leaves us with a haunting image when she describes a recurring dream she has been having since March.
Born in Russia, in the Ural region, Lena Herzog moved to St Petersburg to study at the Philological Faculty to study Language and Literature. She moved to the United States in 1990, where she studied History and Philosophy of Science.
Herzog is a multidisciplinary artist, she is the author of six books of photography and a contributor to Harper’s Magazine. Her work also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review and Cabinet among other publications and has been widely exhibited in Europe and in the United States. Her most recent conceptual work was dedicated to the loss of world’s linguistic diversity and it is called Last Whispers: Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and A Falling Tree. Last Whispers is a multimedia, audio video installation, a public platform and a virtual reality (VR). The project is an ecosystem that explores the global mass extinction of languages. It premiered at the British Museum in London in 2016, and has traveled around the world. Last Whispers Virtual Reality premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and garnered acclaim and prizes at over twenty major international VR festivals. Last Whispers’ 45 min immersive installation was shown at major concert halls and theaters: The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, while in France, it showed at the drama theater Le Théâtre de la Ville and at the Paris opera house Le Théâtre du Châtelet.
Credits:
Paul Holdengraber - Co-Creator, Host, OLA Director
Anthony Audi - Co-Creator, Researcher, OLA Director
Alejandro Cohen - Co-Creator, Producer, Composer
Christian Pitt - Production Coordinator
Erin Cooney - Copy, Production
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