About This Event
Ventriloquism, the story goes, emerged in ancient Greece as a form of manipulation, with mistresses of “belly speech” claiming to channel the gods. By the nineteenth century, these false prophets were replaced by a standard stage act: a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy’s lips as part of a magic show, distracting the audience while pulling off a trick. Recently, the art form has seen a resurgence, with a new wave of ventriloquists taking on master-puppet dynamics or speaking the unspeakable (with a dummy channeling the id). The appeal of these old-fashioned acts hinges on uncanniness, as Sarah Rebecca Kessler writes in Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok (Duke University Press, 2026), but also on the voice’s vulnerability in the face of new technologies for reproducing, appropriating, and fabricating speech.
On the occasion of Out of Sync’s publication, Kessler will speak about the “age-old embodiment of the disembodied voice” as bridging the history of minstrelsy and “anxieties about media and mediation in the digital era.” She’ll be joined by Sophie Becker, a ventriloquist known for performances with dummies—Jerry and Ronnie—that take on lives of their own, calling Becker’s primacy into question. In a conversation with Ronnie, Kessler and Becker will reckon with the role of ventriloquism in propping up pseudapostles, inspiring TikTok’s lip-syncers, and ending Milli Vanilli’s career.
Nobody’s Dummy is presented with Electronic Arts Intermix. The event will include screenings of ventriloquism-related films and videos from EAI’s catalogue.
Participants
Sarah Rebecca Kessler is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok (Duke University Press, 2026). She is an editor at Public Books and her writing has appeared in Camera Obscura, Film Quarterly, and Triple Canopy, among other publications. Her book on the history of binge-watching, The Binge Decade, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.
Sophie Becker is an actor and ventriloquist based in New York City. She has performed with her puppet, Jerry Mahoney, at Rockaway Film Festival, MoMA PS1, Art Omi, the Kraine Theater, TV Eye, Pageant, Blade Study, and Theatre 80 St Marks, among other venues.
Nobody’s Dummy is made possible through the generous support of the Lambent Foundation/Fund of Tides Foundation; the Teiger Foundation; Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in cultural critics of color cofounded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation; the Ken and Judith Joy Family Foundation; the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation; the Stolbun Family; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and Triple Canopy’s Publishers Circle and Board of Directors.
About This Event
Ventriloquism, the story goes, emerged in ancient Greece as a form of manipulation, with mistresses of “belly speech” claiming to channel the gods. By the nineteenth century, these false prophets were replaced by a standard stage act: a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy’s lips as part of a magic show, distracting the audience while pulling off a trick. Recently, the art form has seen a resurgence, with a new wave of ventriloquists taking on master-puppet dynamics or speaking the unspeakable (with a dummy channeling the id). The appeal of these old-fashioned acts hinges on uncanniness, as Sarah Rebecca Kessler writes in Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok (Duke University Press, 2026), but also on the voice’s vulnerability in the face of new technologies for reproducing, appropriating, and fabricating speech.
On the occasion of Out of Sync’s publication, Kessler will speak about the “age-old embodiment of the disembodied voice” as bridging the history of minstrelsy and “anxieties about media and mediation in the digital era.” She’ll be joined by Sophie Becker, a ventriloquist known for performances with dummies—Jerry and Ronnie—that take on lives of their own, calling Becker’s primacy into question. In a conversation with Ronnie, Kessler and Becker will reckon with the role of ventriloquism in propping up pseudapostles, inspiring TikTok’s lip-syncers, and ending Milli Vanilli’s career.
Nobody’s Dummy is presented with Electronic Arts Intermix. The event will include screenings of ventriloquism-related films and videos from EAI’s catalogue.
Participants
Sarah Rebecca Kessler is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok (Duke University Press, 2026). She is an editor at Public Books and her writing has appeared in Camera Obscura, Film Quarterly, and Triple Canopy, among other publications. Her book on the history of binge-watching, The Binge Decade, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.
Sophie Becker is an actor and ventriloquist based in New York City. She has performed with her puppet, Jerry Mahoney, at Rockaway Film Festival, MoMA PS1, Art Omi, the Kraine Theater, TV Eye, Pageant, Blade Study, and Theatre 80 St Marks, among other venues.
Nobody’s Dummy is made possible through the generous support of the Lambent Foundation/Fund of Tides Foundation; the Teiger Foundation; Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in cultural critics of color cofounded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; the Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation; the Ken and Judith Joy Family Foundation; the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation; the Stolbun Family; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and Triple Canopy’s Publishers Circle and Board of Directors.