FLUPSI

for two performers, analogue and digital voices, printer, microscope-camera, objects, recorded sounds and loudspeakers
composition, texts & peformance: Emma Bennett (London) & Steffi Weismann (Berlin) 17 min. 25. August 2013 STRAHLER Berlin-Neukölln, Labor Sonor Kunsthaus KuLe (2015)

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 ofering 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.