Poltergeist or some scene else is an essayistic site-specific broadcast by Yulia Carolin Kothe that takes the Barras market’s syntax of artefacts as a starting point for creating an expanding and ever-evolving tableau of intense, uneasy acousmatic atmospheres. The conspicuous and omniscient narrator takes the listener on a rambling walk through the Barras entering private and public spaces, a remote cottage and various ambivalent territories home to disembodied voices and close up traces of life like a wet ring of a coffee cup just plucked from the scene.

This new commission for David Dale Gallery on Clyde Built Radio is rich and heavy in material. Kothe re-articulates local oral histories, chopping up DIY recordings on cassettes purchased from the Barras market, and combining with avantgarde German poems by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874–1927), Thekla Lingen (1866-1931), Karoline von Günderrode (1780-1806), Helga Goetze (1922–2008), and Anna Ritter (1865–1921). Kothe’s own electronic compositions are juxtaposed with songs by musicians who also rearticulate oral histories in their practices, such as AGF aka poemproducer, Michaela Meise, Martyn Bennett (often with Sheila Stewart).

Centring the figure of the Poltergeist, Kothe explores the etymological possibilities of the word as a ghost responsible both for unruly physical disturbances and moving objects — ‘Genstände bewegen’ in German — which could be understood as ‘moving forward with a subject’, e.g. the suggestion of an unconventional idea. In this sense, the broadcast lingers like a poltergeist, making metaphorical and geographical suggestions then playfully pulling out the chair from underneath you just at the last moment.

Yulia | Julia Carolin Kothe is an artist working between Glasgow and Frankfurt am Main. Her practice moves between sculpture, film, sound, writing, installation and performance, often responding to archival material, feminist theory and personal and oral histories. Through forensic expansion of these materials, Kothe creates new sites, both digital and physical, glitching fictional or often partially-remembered environments that seek to configure new relational and temporal experiences. She regularly works collaboratively, recently undertaking a residency at CCA Creative Lab with Lisa Fabian exploring uncatalogued recorded material from the CCA and Third Eye Centre archives.

Recent works have been shown at Neuer Kunstverein Mittelrhein, Neuwied (2023), French Street, Glasgow (2023), Rosa Stern, Munich (2022), Kunsthalle Mainz (2021), Queens Street Studios, Belfast (2021), POKY – Institute of Contemporary Art, Mainz (2020), ATLETIKA Gallery, Vilnius (2020), mañana bold, Offenbach/Main (2019) and Frankfurter Kunstverein (2018). She has participated in residencies at Glenkeen Garden Residency, Crespo Foundation in Frankfurt am Main and West Cork, Ireland (2023) and Hospitalfield, Arbroath (2021/22). Kothe has completed Masters degrees at both Glasgow School of Art and Kunsthochschule Mainz.