MEDIATHEK

TURBULENCE is a chamber opera involving an all-female cast, consisting of a Mother (soprano), Daughter (actor), and the voices of a female pilot, flight announcer and baby. Framed in live performance by boarding procedures and meditative take-off sequence, the opera is set high in the sky in an airline passenger cabin. The opera plays out as a musical drama between the two main characters, in three scenes, with pre-recorded and live electronic effects propelling the drama forward. The parallel monologues of the singing mother and her speaking daughter tilt, interweave, and collide; at times their articulations in the white-noise spectrum seem to be their only common language. This charged sonic environment includes the popping and rushing of an unreliable flight intercom system, an amplified transistor radio, a hand-luggagesized synthesiser, and the aria ‘For those who are near you are far away’, with its soaring opening line, ‘Sky as blue’. In 2015, a film version of TURBULENCE was created by Sydney-based artist Peter Humble, using the sound recording from the original production (podcasted by ABC Classic FM). The film version was created for the e-book LIGE, released on 2nd June 2015 by the Danish Arts Agency and Danish Ministry of Equality in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. LIGE celebrates the 100th anniversary of the achievement of female suffrage in Denmark, presenting projects by 20 artists whose work addresses the cultural politics of gender front-lines today in a variety of media. To view the 2015 film version on this platform, please go to http://lige-kunst.dk/ and click on the left hand side of the screen to reveal the Table of Contents and then click on Chapter XIV – Juliana Hodkinson.