ohrenhoch presents on Sunday 24 February, 3, 10, 17 March 2019, continuously from 2pm to 9pm:
It grumbles, jerks and yearns...
artificial or real?
(2019, Premiere)
by Bernadette Johnson
Curator, loudspeaker installations: Knut Remond
‚Test Tube‘ is already the third new work for ‚ohrenhoch‘ by soundartist Bernadette Johnson (2013: „Playscapes, Take A: Beethoven in the Hills“; 2016: „Je suis in the Kitchen“)
Bernadette Johnson on 'Test Tube':
The development of systems which can recognize, interpret, process and simulate human emotions goes ahead. This provokes questions: Where is the difference between artificial and real? What happens to indefinable moods?
In „Test Tube“ the measurement of human emotions is the topic.
Sounds and noises from our everyday life, which draw, reform and manipulate subconces emotions, are collected. This audio material is nested, taken apart or condensed in sound balls. Spoken words describe a possible meaning.
Fictive scenarios and undefinable ambiances arise and disappear again. It grumbles, jerks and yearns...
In this interplay/counterplay of fragmented ambiaces, the borders between artificial and real are demanded and varied.
Audio Field Report no. 58 / Sound activism 37: Interview with Bernadette Johnson by Knut Remond. Limited edition audio cassette, 8 copies numbered. Available at 'ohrenhoch, der Geräuschladen' (and heard on headphone in the ohrenhoch archive space).
Bernadette Johnson
The Swiss Audioartist Bernadette Johnson lives in Basel. She is author of acoustical poems and audio pieces for Radio and other listening rooms. For her sound works she was awarded among others the Karl Sczuka Promotion Prize and was a laureate of Phonurgia Nova.In her audio-visual work as well, B.J. leads us through extra-semantic areas. Auditory perseption is observed, questioned and „disturbed“. It's a matter of tracing otherwise parallel and hidden experience spaces.