i can't hear you
1. come equal
with
Anna Zawadzka “What would you tell your employer if you could speak freely?”
interviews playout and online interview
and
Ralf Wendt “Rolling Roles and Rules”
- Questioning “hierarchy-free” communication in a performative lecture and a group laboratory situation
Due to the laws of Covid-19 regulations (“emergency brake”), we had to close our doors again before the day. Visits of our event i can’t hear you 1. come equal in Changing Room were not possible on 30 April 12:00-20:00. The event was broadcasted live via Mixcloud instead.
Time table for stream:
12:00 - 13:30 Ralf Wendt “Rolling Roles and Rules” Performative Lecture
13:30 - 14:00 Music and sounds on work, working class, labour, workers rights and more
14:00 - 14:30 Anna Zawadzka “What would you tell your employer if you could speak freely?” Introduction
14:30 - 15:00 Anna Zawadzka playout: Interviews
15:00 - 16:00 Music and sounds on work, working class, labour, workers rights and more
16:00 - 17:30 Ralf Wendt “Rolling Roles and Rules” Performative Lecture
17:30 - 18:00 Anna Zawadzka playout: Interviews
18:00 - 19:30 Laboratory with Anna Zawadzka, Ralf Wendt and Research and Waves
19:30 - 20:00 Anna Zawadzka playout: Interviews
We open the "i can't hear you" event series in the format of a hybrid meeting between listening, performance lectures, live interviews, play-out of pre-recorded interviews, and communication laboratory situations with Anna Zawadzka (online) and Ralf Wendt with Research and Waves members (on site). We think there is always something new to observe in very usual situations, between work conversations and other chat rooms. Behaviors are often so different, and coming equal is necessary to be together. The role of verbal and nonverbal communication plays an important part in our daily life. We observe how their patterns reflect the status, power, and dominance between people. How can we pay more attention to it? In this 8 hours working shift on site and online we will speak with each other and dive into vivid work experiences, talk about non-hierarchical communication and deconstruct the meaning of control, its muting or self-censoring, and influence on the behavior of others.
→ Listen to Online Release
What would you tell your employer if you didn’t have to censor yourself?
Work.
We see things in there.
We hear things.
We experience treatment.
Far too often shitty, unjust, bad, unclear, unrespectful treatment.
We think about it a lot.
Sometimes we can’t sleep or eat, or function because of it.
Sometimes we talk about it with co-workers, family, or friends. But at work, we keep quiet. Because we know, we could be "punished" for honesty. We could be fired. But we can not afford to be fired. So we keep silent.
This risk of losing a job, or turning the environment of work into unbearable, because of possible mobbing – this risk makes us speechless. Make us afraid, and therefore quiet. Systemically produced fear of employees allows our employers to avoid confrontation with the consequences of their actions and negligence.
So, what would you tell your employer if you could speak freely?
Is it about salary? Paycheck? Working hours? Atmosphere? Racism? Papers? Threats? Hierarchy? Sexism? Conditions of work? Expectations? Respect? Skills? Promotion? Co-workers? Or?
Tell me. Without suppressing complaints, anger, frustration, demands, fear, sadness, or laugh. In detail, or in general. Uncensored. I will hear you. I want to heat it. Let me.
Anonymously, or not. As you prefer.
In whatever language you want.*
Whatever job you have, or had.
If you want me to bring your words to your ex-employer, or current one, I will do it.
If you agree, I will record your words and play it loud in “Changing Room” afterwards, so it could be heard in public. Your recorded speech will be also available on the website of the project. However, it is up to you. If you don’t agree to publish it, it will stay between us.
I am there, waiting for you to talk to me.
* We can speak German, English, and Polish. However, if you prefer to tell it in another language, you are welcome to do it! We will discuss together possible translations.
The project is ongoing.
You can still
→Book your slot for a 30min. Online Interview via email
or
→Take part in the online questionaire
Anna Zawadzka works as a sociologist and as a gardener’s assistant. Her current sociological interests and research are shaped vastly by the experience of work in Germany and of east-European migration to “the West”. They include micro-practices of class distinctions, manifestations of nationalism in everyday life, ideologies of anti-communism, and the influence of physical labor on workers’ life, well-being and health. Currently she is working on research called “Proletariat, not precariat” – about invisibility of physical labour in contemporary societies and political discourses (including the Left). Anna Zawadzka is a co-editor of an academic journal “Studia Litteraria et Historica” and of a website www.homosovieticus.com
→ Listen to Online Release
- Questioning “hierarchy-free” communication
This is a performative lecture and a group laboratory situation.
In the form of a gathering we aim to observe the complexity of a very usual experience - to speak with each other.
We could take the luxury to look from several perspectives: the “nonverbal” expressions, suprasegmentalia, gesture languages, mixed languages, secret languages of resistance, animal conversations, violent speaking, controlled ways of listening and psychoacoustic recognition, fading, muting, mourning and screaming.
Ralf Wendt works within time-based and literary arts on the deconstruction of human and animal language, questioning orders of things. Since the mid-90s he has thematised in performances, films and radio art, a poetics of the suprasegmentalia, often with the Wolf In The Winter Performance-Collective. The connection of performance art with the medium of radio led Wendt out of the galleries and festivals into free radio. As a curator of art, music or radio art festivals such as FreiWild festival (1996-2000), Art for Animals (2011), Radio Revolten (2006, 2016) and “Anybody out there?” at D21 Gallery (2020), Wendt brings together different forms of artistic expression interested in utopic/dystopic societal disturbances. He shares his experiences as an educator in several universities, art schools and media education centers. In 2020 he was awarded by the 11. Berliner Hörspielfestivals, created Radio Mischpoke as a 3 days mobile radio action from Hyderabad Literary Festival in India, authored various radio works for Werkleitz festival in Halle, RadioLab Seanaps Festival in Leipzig, Common Waves in Tbilisi and Spam in Kinshasa.
i can't hear you is supported by:
