silicon spirits

performance using a circuitry board as ouija board

created for the festival intimate spaces
@ ima, hainburg

09/12


the performance setup in a room of hotel altes kloster, hainburg


the table with the circuit board (photos © the author)


during the performance


performance photos © reinhard mayr
spirits and technology have always formed intimate bonds:
whether it was the first tapping sounds of the spiritists who came into the public eye in america in the 1840s – and in the capital of the morse company of all places –
or friedrich jürgenson’s and konstantin raudive’s tape-recorded voice phenomena or the spirit images that the aachen-born medium klaus schreiber recorded on
video tape in the early 80s, right when consumer video equipment was becoming affordable.
“silicon spirits” uses discarded motherboards and circuit boards as ouija boards: in the intimacy of a two-person séance in a darkened hotel room,
a circuit board is read with a stylus; involuntary movements evoke unexpected sounds, perhaps the answers to questions in the minds of the visitors.
the mysterious inner workings of the silicon disks merge with the even more mysterious workings of human wetware.

see a video documentation, produced by the festival

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