24/05/2014
–
07/07/2014
Robert Ashley, Felix Brenner, Michael Esposito, Dora Garcia, Susan Hiller, Pauline Oliveros, Bryan Lewis Saunders, Occult Voices, Annette Wehrmann, Hannah Weiner.
The inability to remember when, where and how previously learned information has been acquired is known as source amnesia. The phrase “I think I read it somewhere” and episodic memory is familiar to everybody living in the digital age.
Hannah Weiner, American avant-garde poet from the 1970’s, considered the side effects of memory loss liberating. “Without memory,” she wrote “surprises occur.” Her most known book “Clairvoyant Journal” (1974), includes transcriptions of words and sentences Weiner saw on people’s foreheads, on walls, or simply hovering in the air. “THE CAPITAL WORDS, WHICH GIVE INSTRUCTIONS, the italics, which make comments, and the ordinary type, which is me just trying to get through the day.“ For Weiner, clairvoyance was a synaesthetic ability, a way into the world.
From seeing words to hearing voices, the exhibition SOURCE AMNESIA displays text and sound works originating from subconscious processes and extrasensory perception. “Occult Voices - Paranormal Music” compiled by Thomas Knoefel and Andreas Fischer, is a collection of audio documentation of so-called “unseen Intelligences” of the 20th century. Acting under the Phantom Airwaves Institution, Michael Esposito has participated in hundreds of paranormal investigations all over the world. As Electronic Voice Phenomena has been the main focus in Esposito's extensive research, a collection of his EVP tapes will be displayed. “Automatic Writing” (1979) by Robert Ashley is an audio piece based on involuntary speech resulting from Ashley’s mild form of Tourette's Syndrome. “The Confessor” is an 11- hour book of sleep talking recordings collected by Bryan Lewis Saunders.
For the series of drawings “Dream Mapping” (1973) Susan Hiller invited 12 participants to sleep outdoors in an area of unusual occurrence of “fairy rings.” The field became a site of dream experiences which were discussed and mapped the following morning. Felix Brenner will be doing a live audio streaming from his psychedelic and ethnobotanical laboratory (Felix Brenner’s Universe) situated close to Bodensee. “Anthology of Text Scores and Deep Listening” by pioneer composer Pauline Oliveros is a comprehensive collection of individual and group meditations/performances that embrace her ideas of sonic awareness in music, and life in general. Annette Wehrmann's texts written on luftschlangen (paper-blow outs) are based on introspective thoughts and observations of daily life in 1990’s Germany, utopian literature, sci-fi and feminism. In Dora Garcia’s ongoing project “23 Million Stories,” a performer recites all the stories of the world in a loud voice. When completed, all the stories of all time and all the places have passed through their lips.
Curated by Franziska Glozer, Margit Säde Lehni, Michael Zaugg.
