Herbal Auditions
For their work ‘herbal auditions’, Salomé Voegelin and Magda Drozd will explore the mediaeval herb garden created in honour of Conrad Gessner, a herbalist from the 16th century. Through listening and sound recordings, they seek to reconsider the plants’ contribution to medicine and knowledge. The artists trace the tensions between a contemporary embrace of alternative medicine, and its concurrent rejection as expressive of the anti-vaxx movement; and consider the developments of contemporary medicine as at once seen to be sustaining of life, while at the same time representing the evils of neo-liberal markets. These tensions are explored by sounding the in-between: between bodies, plants, narratives, medicine, viruses, earth and the air connecting all of them. The material for the performance be recorded on site and then transformed and enriched. In the context of the local recreation area, the listeners are invited to reflect on the knowledge we gained and lost during the time and how we understand healing, health, bodies, plants, and medicine now.
In collaboration with (interviews):
PD Dr. Caroline S. Weckerle (Leitung Botanischer Garten, Institut für Systematische und Evolutionäre Botanik, Universität Zürich) & Dr. Maja Dal Cero
Salomé Voegelin is an artist and writer who works with sound’s relational capacity to practise possibilities of the undisciplined and the plurality of a fuzzy geography. She is interested in sound’s transversal knowledge and listens across disciplines to share its hybrid capacity. Voegelin writes essays and text-scores for performances and publications. Her books include “Sonic Possible Worlds” (2014/21), “The Political Possibility of Sound” (2018) and “Listening to Noise and Silence” (2010). She is a Professor of Sound at the University of the Arts London and represents the Professorship Sound Studies at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig.
About the festival: https://sonictopologies.com/about/
Pictures Johannes Berger