Ohira + Bonilha: Psychophone

Artefact: Psychophone 1/2; 2013

Developed between 1972 and 1974 by Franz Seidl, an austrian electrical engineer, this device is intended to improve ITC (instrumental transcommunication) by using three different methods simultaneously: broadband receiver, self-sender radio transceiver and a high impedance microphone input. However, the Psychophone by Ohira + Bonilha is foremost a device dedicated to the problem of scientific method and data interpretation. Because it can be used to communicate with other types of being (it was primarily intended as a scientific contribution to the research of the Electronic Voice Phenomena), which are not recognized by official science, it underlines the problem of scientific determinacy and its normative consequences. The Psychophone can be used as a nice synth or as a communication device, but it nevertheless asks us which axioms we choose to believe in and why.

 

 

Luciana Ohira and Sergio Bonilha graduated in Fine Arts at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes at the University of São Paulo. Since 2005, they have been working in a tandem. With solo and group exhibitions, they are actively present in galleries, museums and festivals all over the world, and they also work as curators. Their current topics of interest are psychotronics, telepathy and transcommunication.

 

 

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Museum of Transitory Art

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Museum of Transitory Art

MoTA is a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to advancing the research, production and presentation of transitory, experimental, and live art forms.

MoTA is a museum without a permanent collection or a fixed space. Instead, its programs are realised in different locations and contexts in temporary physical and virtual spaces.

MoTA organizes and supports transitory art in the form of continuous events, exhibitions and educational programs both locally and internationally. As its name indicates, MoTA examines what a museum can be today and in the future.

MoTA is in constant search for the new, the uncertain, and the undefined.

MoTA works on several continuous programmes & projects. We run MoTA Point – a Space for Art & Ideas, we curate and produce the annual SONICA Festival, in addition to regular music programmes such as SONICA Series and SONICA Classics.

Within the years of running our residency programme, we’ve established T.R.I.B.E. – a network of residency spaces in the Balkans & Eastern Europe.

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