FLUPSI
by Emma Bennett (London) & Steffi Weismann (Berlin)
for two performers, analogue and digital voices, text, printer, microscope cam, objects and speakers
17 minutes, 2012-2013
25. august 2013, STRAHLER, Pflügerstraße 15, Berlin-Neukölln video documentation
Over the course of nine months, the artists engaged in a fitful exchange of materials, ideas and recordings. Sometimes, as the challenges of their day-to-day lives got in the way of their artistic ambitions, the pair exchanged descriptions of physical ailments and frustrating circumstances. At other times, a lonely pet budgerigar named Flupsi acted as a conduit for collaboration, his song making an animalistic intervention in a dialogue mediated by machines.
Here, their dialogue is transformed in a performance using human speech, machine noise, and voice synthesis software – each element offering its own lament for the absent bird. The time structure of the composition is determined by the intervals of e-mail and skype conversations. Each artist works with her own distinct tempo: sometimes fast, sometimes slow, always simultaneous.