Vancouver:

„Wiencouver 1906“ is a meeting in mid-air, a transatlantic transmission to reconsider early broadcasts of the voice over radiowaves. From Vancouver and Vienna Anna Friz, Glenn Gear, Absolute Value of Noise, and Volkmar Klien are mixing together the sounds of old and new voices with retro technologies (mechanical clocks and motors, magnetic field receivers, micro-radio transmitters, etc.) that were (and are) used to connect people through signals, schedules, and notions of historical time and events.
Reginald Fessenden's first broadcast was a surprise to the radio operators who typically listened for spark-clicks and tones, so the voice and violin recording that he transmitted seemed like a ghost to the listeners. The idea of time and chronologies also contains the notion of ghosts, specially the idea that going backwards in time can effect the present in unpredictable and often negative ways. Before radio, clocks were also used as an aid to navigation.

Inspired by the history of Reginald Fessenden's voice on radio and the "secrets" of radiation, the three Vancouver artists have been working with the themes of "invisible" sounds, hidden voices, the early days of radio communication (primarily on the Atlantic Ocean from 1900 to 1907), and micro-casting using low-power transmitters in performance spaces. Drawing from tales of ghost ships and myths from the early days of radio that claimed the seafaring dead could be contacted via shortwave, this performance conjures an ethereal world of distant voices, sea, and static. Signals emerge from the depths of noise, manifest, mutate, migrate, and decay.

Absolute Value of Noise plays with VLF (very low frequency) receivers to convert radiation (from transmitters, cell-phones, different wireless devices and electronic equipment) into audible sound. In this performance, he uses large circular antennas to draw strange noises from the low-watt broadcast equipment (radio and TV) of the other performers.

Anna Friz will consider the human desire for remote contact as manifest in the notion of inaudible" transmissions (from the living or the dead). She mixes the extremely low-watt transmissions of voice and breath with naval codes, stray static, and early 20th century recordings.

Glenn Gear works with video and software to create dynamic visual montages – in this case focusing on the theme of the ocean, shipping, and early radio communication. In this performance, he works with the "distressed", ephemeral video image – exploring the signal and video noise that is generated through broadcast and independent transmissions (ghosts and echoes from the aural/visual aether).

Volkmar Klien at Kunstradio in Vienna investigates the soundscapes of mechanical agents of information dissemination before the advent of wireless communication. Clocks, chronometers as well as early music automata recorded at Vienna's clock museum and museum of technology form the basis for Volkmar's sonic explorations in 'Wiencouver 2006'.

A project in the framework of the WIENCOUVER SERIES (http://kunstradio.at/WIENCOUVER/index.html).


Thank you :
Wiener Uhren Museum:
Maria Goiser

Technisches Museum:
Peter Donhauser
Ingrid Prucha