Pioneering extended vocal techniques and live electronic processing with her SensorGlove, Franziska Baumann creates solo works at the intersection of voice, gesture, mediated voice and spatialised vocal spheres.

Her compositions and improvisations push the boundaries of perception, vocal creation and sonic expression by exploring the convergence of the embodied and mediated voice through her gestural system.

She explores the potential of the contemporary voice within mediated practices and the underlying practices, principles, and sensor technologies that support creativity in embodied human-computer interaction in music performance.

Mapping plays a central role in her work, also as a means of deliberately provoking a loss of control that leads her into a sphere of heightened awareness.

In this artist talk, Franziska Baumann will present the backgrounds to her practice with extended vocal techniques and live processing with her SensorGlove, including a short demonstration. The evening will give plenty of space for questions and discussions with the artist.

Franziska Baumann (CH) is a vocalist, improviser, and composer working in many art forms, including free improvisation, experimental new opera, sound art, and interdisciplinary audiovisual projects. In her solo projects, she works at the intersection of voice, live electronic processing with gestural sensor interfaces and spatialised sound. Her music emerges outside specific genres, drawing from the human voice’s archaic, experimental, and stylistically broad expressive possibilities.
As artist in residence at the STEIM Studio for Electro Instrumental Music in Amsterdam in 2001, she developed her first SensorLab-based glove in collaboration with Michel Waisfisz, Frank Baldé, Jorgen Brinkman and Daniel Schorno.
In her numerous large site-specific projects and new opera productions such as Klang Aar(i)e (2004), Liquid Souls (Donaueschinger Musiktage 2011), Das Raunen der Dinge (Musikfestival Bern 2019) and the a-cappella Trio VOXLab, Baumann’s compositions and improvisations deal with a scenic practice for vocalists. She has collaborated with musicians such as Michel Wintsch, Steve Noble, John Edwards, Lucas Niggli, Mark Sanders, Fred Frith, Emanuel Künzi, Christoph Baumann, Matthias Ziegler, Jacques Demierre, Lauren Newton, and many others.
She teaches at Bern University of Music and has collaborated on several research projects, publishing her first book Embodied Human-Computer Interaction in Vocal Music Performance (2023).

This artist talk is organized in conjunction with Digital Care: The Evening of The Hands, where Franziska Baumann will perform. That event is taking place on the evening before at V2_ and also curated by Marije Baalman.