FRAU LEHMANN

Additional Information

Was commissioned for Yarmonics Festival 2020.

It is an interactive audio-visual composition and score for ice sculptures, inks, crayons, voice, biorhythmic data and movement.



FRAU LEHMANN is an attempt to communicate my synaesthetic experiences in a neurodivergent body, and the sensory overload and alienation I experienced from working online during the pandemic.The piece tries to fathom the pain of forced separation from oneself and from loved ones. It aims to displace and destabilise my body and reimagine its role in online performance- as part of a vibrant intersecting assemblage of material and digital things.

Traces of my previous embodied practices and artworks jostle and reform alongside fragments of family history and materials. These elements migrate and collide into their own melodrama of absence and abstraction.



The Score was created by using biorhythmic sensors to generate data on muscle activity and heart rate which was cross-referenced against segments from two texts: My dream journal 2019-20, and my great Aunt Renate’s autobiographical account of her flight from Silesia in World War Two (Elisabeth’s Journey:1945, Hillside Publications, 2009)

Frau Lehmann is a fleeting character in the book - a kind woman who provides temporary shelter.



Text pieces and data were combined in a layered score which was interpreted using materials and techniques used in my live work with the body (vocals, line-drawing, ice, inks, food colouring and electronics)

A Max Msp patch was created which uses the amplitude of the composition to trigger biorhythmic data and digital effects. It creates a ‘data storm’ which floods my Twitter feed with indecipherable biorhythmic data when the piece is played, acting almost like a war-time number station. In this way it approximates my challenges with processing information.



The piece features Robin Foster as Technical Director.

 

Details

Year

Yarmonics Festival 2020
United Kingdom

Minutes
20

Recordings

Date published
June 2020
Performers
Lou Barnell
Title
FRAU LEHMANN