In Beyond Chattering and Noise, language is negotiated as code, discourse and a material to be sculpted. In this piece, Koch explores Christian Marazzi and Franco Berardi’s theory of semiocapitalism, and examines their notion that in the age of digital financial capitalism, both language and finance are organized according to the principle of an exclusively relational-symbolic model and reduced to an act of recombination. In consequence and in accordance with the diminishing utility of money, in Marazzi and Berardi’s opinion, language’s connection with the world, the human body and social reality is becoming lost in the digital age. This leads in their view to more and more areas of life becoming automated and political decisions being taken without human input.
The starting point for Koch’s attempt to reconnect language to a body, a voice or a reference point – without creating a relationship of cause and effect – is a token which establishes the bond between language and money. On one side of the coin is engraved the slogan “A l’immortalité”. It served as proof of membership of the Académie française, which has supervised the standardization of the French language since the 17th century. The fragmented text montage reminiscent of this discursive background consists of digitally processed voice recordings and is played back as a vibrating sound installation somewhere between chattering and noise.
— Heidi Brunnschweiler
