Smog by Aurélie Bernadette Pertusot

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SMOG

Electro-acoustic composition
for domestic appliances, objects, zither

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Recorded in Decrember 2024 at Studio 764, Berlin.
Mixed and mastered in September 2025.

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We are super happy to publish „Smog“ by french artist and performer Aurélie Bernadette Pertusot: a three-track sound journey through memorized weather conditions and spiraling micro-tornadoes, deja vu feelings and encounters with smoggy dense Chengdu (China) environments; featuring the sound of self-built instruments, recorded Chengdu bird song, a whispering fan and a meowing zither - coloured by an overall warm-grey atmosphere from far away.

SMOG was performed for the first time at the concert- and event-series Noiseberg in Berlin on March 3, 2024. The pieces on this release were recorded in December 2024 at Studio 764 in Berlin Adlershof, mixed and mastered in September 2025 in Berlin.



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In Aurélie‘s own words:

The weather conditions from one day to the next are never exactly the same. However, it could be very close or similar. When this happens, something in the air reminds me of a feeling that brings me back to the past. Yet, it cannot be related to a specific memory : very simply, an elusive impression of dejà vu emerges. A strange feeling that seems to rise up from a space that like horizon, could be both near and far, familiar and unfamiliar.

SMOG recounts the experience of a Chengdu, China trip in 2023 where I have encountered an environment and an atmosphere, dense and grey from time to time, I have never seen before.

SMOG evokes atmospheric spaces (stagnant fog, spiraling micro-tornadoes, relief waves, etc.) in constant motion that influence our mental landscape. Without being nostalgic, the first composition of SMOG is an attempt to recreate that vague feeling of déjà vu, by reinterpreting this landscape without any landmarks in which we could blend in. With no visible horizon, we don’t know where the boundary between the sky and the earth lies.

The next two pieces take me to another place, to a different and new situation made up of a more desired time and space.

The pieces are composed of noises and sounds from salvaged or self-built instruments, selected objects that I use as instruments (metal cups, glass marbles, etc.), and recordings of Chengdu birdsongs. To record these pieces, I played some different sounds on speakers placed around the room so that the physical space could be felt through the vibrations.

1. LOSS
• an endless vibrating string
• A radio with no signal
• Warm grey, then light blue

2. STORM
• Rotary encounters
• Two glasses sliding on a table
• Two marbles rolling on a bowl

3. REVOLT
• a tiny Singing bowl
• a whispering fan 
• a radio tape in pain
• Then, a zither out of tune starting to meow


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AURÈLIE BERNADETTE PERTUSOT (*1983)

Born in Nancy, Aurélie Pertusot is a visual artist, performer, and musician. A graduate of the Écoles Supérieures d'Art de Nancy and Sint Lukas Art School in Brussels (2007) and the Exercising Modernity Academy program in Berlin (2022), she lives and works between Nancy and Berlin.

Co-founder of performance groups including Les Trotteuses - radio alarm clock players, Feu Moyen, Loop-loupe, Ana Colute, and Les actionnaires, she was a research artist with the Arthésis sound research group at ENSA Bourges between 2016 and 2018, where she studied under musicians and composers Lê Quan Ninh, Annette Van de Gorne, Alexis Degranier, and Michel Chion.

Her work has been nominated for the Neuköllner Kunstpreis in Berlin and the André Evard Prize (Messmer Foundation). Her pieces and performances are regularly presented in France: MUDAAC Epinal, Ergastule, Frac Lorraine, Magasin des Horizon in Grenoble, CND in Pantin, Centre Pompidou Paris and Metz and abroad: Akouphène festival, Cave12 in Geneva, Gothenburg Biennial, Soundseeing festival with Stiftung Künstlerdorf in Schöppingen, Galerie Weisser Elefant and Galerie Mario Mazzoli, Noiseberg in Berlin and nyMussik in Bergen.

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WEB:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aurelie_pertusot/

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Netlabel for digital audio-publications, wrapped in print-editions.

Dedicated to an exploratory approach to listening + soundmaking across disciplines and means.

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concerts/events-series Rumpeln at Studio 764 in Berlin Adlershof

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out soon:
• AURELIE BERNADETTE PERTUSOT • Smog
• STEFAN ROIGK • Unpredictable

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