“The woman behind the world’s first ‘oenesthetic’ wine and sound bar believes there’s more to ‘sonic seasoning’ than hype”
Jo’s work in sound and taste covered in The Guardian.
Oenosthesia: a wine and sound experience
Wednesday 1st March – 6pm
Black Box (D106, First floor, D Block), UNSW Art & Design, Greens Rd, Paddington, Sydney NSW 2021
Experience the fascinating transformations that occur when wine and sound combine at the inaugural Australian presentation of Jo Burzynska’s Oenosthesia, sound and wine project. Created from blending a soundscape of recordings made from the winemaking process with wines tasted during the piece, the work will premiere in Sydney on 1st March 2017 as part of the launch of the Writing Around Sound journal that Jo co-edits.
In Oenosthesia, Jo explores the way in which sound influences the perception of a wine’s taste and texture through the changing timbres and frequencies of the sonic element in combination with different styles of wine tasted during the work. Oenosthesia brings together Jo’s two professional interests as a sound artist and wine writer to create a unique experience based on the science of sensory interaction. The work was initially created as an installation from a “Suoni dal confine” artist residency in Irpinia, Italy and premiered at the Interferenze New Art Festival’s Factory of Art Rurality and Media 2012 in Tufo, Italy. It has since been presented at Rome’s MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts, at Studio Sienko in London and at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Physics Room Gallery in New Zealand.
Jo is currently engaged in research into the interaction of sound and taste as part of a PhD at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). This presentation is being made as part of this research, with participants invited to provide feedback via a short questionnaire at the end of the work.
Jo Burzynska has a career spanning two decades in wine and sonic art. As a wine writer and wine judge she has contributed to wine magazines and competitions internationally and is the author of the book, Wine Class (Random House). She is also an active sound artist, whose work in recent years has increasingly drawn on her interest in taste and olfaction in projects that include multisensory installations and performances, as well as establishing of the world’s first “oenosthetic” bar at The Auricle in New Zealand where she matched wines with the exhibitions and the sounds in the space. She also writes on sound and has had articles published in magazines such as The Wire and is the co-editor of Writing Around Sound sonic arts journal, the third issue of which is launched at this event.
Wines kindly supplied by Pegasus Bay, Quartz Reef and The Boneline.
The exclusive glass sponsor for this event and Jo’s research is Riedel.
