Starting in June 2024, Betontonton presents the listening project »Mitgeschrieben« by Juliane Blum. Everyone is invited to experience a collection of voices retelling other people’s semi-public conversations. Only by listening closer to the babble of voices can the visitor make out the single fragments of re-created everyday speech.
This exhibit is made possible by a writing methodology where Blum creates hand-written records of overheard chats. The pieces played at Ebertplatz are a collection of conversations that has been expanded since 2017.
The method works as follows: A note-taker (Juliane Blum) sits in a public space where people pass through, stop by and talk for a little while, for example cafes, parks, trains and squares. The conversations are captured by hand, meaning there are no electronic recording devices involved.
The note-taker, while able to listen to everything that’s spoken about around them, will never be able to write down everything that is said, since writing by hand is slower than spoken conversation. This results in dialogues transformed into fragments instead of perfect transciptions.
Later on, these fragments are recorded in two different ways. Either in a recording studio by two voices synchronously or as a field recording where two passers-by are spontaneously asked to read out a written record at the same time.
Those audio recordings of fragmented conversations will blend into the surroundings of Ebertplatz.
Special thanks to Alexander Steindorf and everyone else who lent their voice to the project. The texts are recorded mainly in German.
Excerpt of the written record »Weisheitszähne« (March 2023, S-Bahn Richtung Hansaplatz)
(1) Das war schon so eklig Weisheitszähne
(2) gezogen und zwei müssen operiert wird ja
(3) bei mir sind die draußen aber drei sind drin
(4) der passt da halt nicht hin der
(5) Weisheitszahn wenigstens lassen vielleicht
(6) Frisst der Karies den [weg] hast du wieder
Juliane Blum is a sound artist based in Düsseldorf with a focus on text. Her main research interest is the alienation of daily conversations and recording processes. She studied at the Institute of Music and Media at Robert-Schumann-University.