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An old man confronts us with some truths about language. The strangeness of his voice merges with the buzzing and humming artefacts of an archaic recording mechanism. A young girl repeats words she is trying to memorize in what sounds like French. Several men exuberantly chant fragments of a creation myth. An elderly woman tells a story of jealousy and murder to an appreciative listener…

The Last Silent Movie opens the unvisited, silent archives of extinct and endangered languages to create a composition of voices that are not silent. They are not silent because someone is listening. The work sets free some of the ghosts and spectres haunting the unacknowledged 'unheimlich' of sound recording that allows us to hear the words and voices of people mostly now dead. In The Last Silent Movie, some voices sing, some tell stories, some recite vocabulary lists and some, directly or indirectly, accuse us – the listeners – of injustice.

Susan Hiller’s third exhibition at Matt’s Gallery features the video programme The Last Silent Movie (2007), accompanied by a suite of 24 etchings by the artist based upon oscilloscope traces of the voices heard on the soundtrack.

Matt’s Gallery is delighted to continue a longstanding relationship with the artist, which dates back to her first exhibition at the gallery in 1980, Work in Progress, followed by An Entertainment (now in the Tate collection) in 1990.
The Last Silent Movie (21 minutes) will be shown on the hour and at half past the hour, Saturday to Sunday, 12 – 6pm, no booking necessary. The last showing of the day will be at 5.30pm.

A boxed portfolio co-published by Matt’s Gallery, Galerie Volker Diehl and Timothy Taylor Gallery and signed by the artist comprises the film and series of 24 etchings (edition of 3). Please contact the gallery for further details.

The film The Last Silent Movie will also be presented by Matt’s Gallery and Artprojx at Late at Tate Britain on 4 July 2008.

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