My artistic practice moves between sound, performance, visual art, and video art. Driven by contemporary discourses and extensive cross-media research that delves deep into the rabbit holes of the present time, my work focuses on deconstruction and critical questioning of supposed certainties, methods, techniques, and knowledge. I am continuously working on a transmedial Gesamtkunstwerk—an audiovisual, political statement that exists in both physical and virtual space.
Through my alter ego JAMES we celebrate Glitch as an active tool of resistance. It's an audio-visual performance, located in deconstructed club, glitch and chaos beats. It thrives on sensory overload: bass pressure, fragmented rhythms, fluctuating BPMs, colliding with the visual fragments of our time. An age of chaos, data-ism, post-truth, post-image,post post. Defined by the decline of Western narratives, the dismantling of hypocrisies and the emergence of new technologies. Within this unstable landscape, JAMES engages in constant experimentation, sampling and reconfiguring codes drawn from club culture, performance practices, and forms of political protest.
I work as a composer, sound designer, sound technician, and video artist for theater and dance productions in numerous international collaborations. The productions have received international recognition and have been shown at the Festival Avignon, FR, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, DE, Beursschouwbourg Brussels, BE, Grand Theater de Genève, and the Dream City Festival in Tunis, among others.
I studied piano and voice at Jazz school in Lucerne in the years 2004/05. Leaving the school after just one year to pursue an autodidactic formation in the fields of performance, sound and composition, later video art. In the following years, I developed a multidisciplinary transmedia artistic practice and acquired extensive technical expertise through countless tutorials and nerdy experimentation. In my research, I seek to transition from being a mere user of tools and technologies to becoming a creator and glitch. In view of the world situation and her personal environment, my art has becomes more and more politicised and radicalised.
As a mainly self-taught artist, my style and technique arecharacterised by its unorthodox, eclectic glitch nature.
Residencies in Brussels, Beirut, New York and Buenos Aires. Master in Theater with a specialisation in Scenic Arts Practice at HKB, Berne. / Received scholarship for composition, Société Suisse des Auteurs SSA, 2013 / Atelier scholarship New York by the canton of Berne, 2013. Residencies in Brussels BE, Beirut LE, and Buenos Aires AR. / 2013-2015 Associated Artist of Dampfzentrale Bern with deRothfils
AWARDED WITH THE MUSIKPREIS KANTON BERN, SUISSE 2024
Collaborations has been a cornerstone of Fröhlich's artistic journey. She has collaborated with a diverse array of artists including: robinrobin; Fhunyue Gao; DANCE DIVINE, AQUATRANSMUTE, Claudia Bossard, AVALANCHE KAITO, Marie Gyselbrecht, Vinco Zone, Ariadna Gironès Mata, Peeping Tom, Elisabeth Weiss, Andy Besuch, arp: (Julia Reist), Mohamed Toukabri, Jorge Guevara, Gao/Kacirek, deRothfils, Nina Stadler, Romy Springsguth,Yara Bou Nassar, Paed Conca, Moritz Alfons, Giulin Stäubli, Matthias Günter, Yannick Mosimann, Anne Welenc, Annina Machaz.
Her works and collaborations have been showcased at renowned venues and festivals, (among others): Dream City Festival Tunis, Grand théâtre de Genève, festival les créatives Genève, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Münchener Volkstheater, Volkstheater Wien; Ballhaus Ost Berlin, Decoratelier, Beursschowbourg, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Dampfzentrale Bern, Nederlands Dance Theatre NDT; Theater Basel; Roxy Theater Basel; Treibstoff Theatertage Basel; Station, Beirut; Espace Libre, Biel, Cinedans Dance onScreen Amsterdam, Tojo Thetaer Reitschule Bern, Schlachthaus Theater, Rote Fabrik Zürich
JAMES performed at: Dachstock Reitschule Bern, BIG Bienale, Genève, Sägezahn Festival Vienna, Ateliers Mommens Bruxelles, Halles de Saint Géri, Cafe Centraal, Kiosk Radio, Tour Vagabonde Lugano, the crazy circle Bruxelles, BLOND Ghent,
Critics highlight the unique and impactful nature of Annalena Fröhlich's contributions. One review commented her video work as a "truly remarkable detail" in the production In den Alpen/après les alpes (director: Claudia Bossard), emphasizing its ability to create an "image of perpetually repeating catastrophe" through intermedial superimposition of drama and film.
and for Transatlantic flight for ODD BEHOLDER video clip odd beholder: «In the video, which was directed by Annalena Fröhlich, who also happens to play the main character, we see a chain-smoking stewardess dancing something of a jagged, spasmodic flamenco. It’s a powerful and hypnotic performance that simultaneously evokes famed directors Almodovar and Lynch.» the big takeover©
JAMES released its first track YOU DON'T PAY THE PRICE on the VA People's Pluto by the label AQUATRANSMUTE by DANCE DIVINE.
One of the noteworthy collaborations in Fröhlich's career is her long-term and ongoing collaboration with theater director Claudia Bossard. This collaboration has allowed Fröhlich to contribute as a video artist and sound designer to major theater institutions in German-speaking countries across Europe. Latest works are shown in Deutsches Theater Berlin (BARACKE, Rainald Goetz 2023), Volkstheater München (Feeling Faust 2022), Volkstheater Wien (In den Alpen / après les alpes, 2022, Elfriede Jelinek, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Dreckfutmetzger (Lydia Haider 2021), Bunbury Ernst sein is Everything, (Deutsches Theater Berlin).
With Fhunyue Gao she initiated ROBIN ROBIN, a virtual and physical platform on which they experiment excessively and unconventionally with sound, scenic installations, choreography, themes and formats. Together they are on an intense research about how to be a not only a user of contemporary medias but becoming a creater.
In 2010 Fröhlich and dancer and choreographer Nina Stadler cofounded and co-directed the dance theater collective deRothfils based in Berne, Switzerland. deRothfils created performances, short movies, site specific and longdurational performances with which they toured internationally in the years 2010 till 2018. With deRothfils Fröhlich made her film directorial debut. they keep disappearing was in the official selection of Cinedans Dance on Screen Festival Amsterdam.
Annalena Fröhlich made an appearance with JAMES in the clip of Avalanche Kaito and realised several music clips like BOWIE for Fhunyue Gao & Sven Kacirek, 2021, Loneliness and Transatlantic Flight for Odd Beholder. The latter got nominated for the BMVMA 2022 - Bewegungsmelder Video Music Award.
Press voices about Annalena Fröhlich
"A truly remarkable detail of the production lies in Annalena Fröhlich's video work. The constellative combination of theatre, words, music and filmic montage reveal an antagonism at the heart of both pieces: the scenic Alpine idyll, waved through by merry skiers, oscillates ever more strongly between a mythically overformed world of life and an economically controlled systemic world. In terms of film poetry and montage, this effect is created by superimposing planetary-looking objects. The perspective of time is successfully undermined and a cosmic space is created that connects past and future. Thus the evening, especially through its intermedial superimposition of drama and film, leaves us with an image of perpetually repeating catastrophe."
in den Alpen / apres les alpes Volkstheater wien / Neue Wiener Theaterkritik feb. 2023
«Ein wirklich bemerkenswertes Detail der Inszenierung liegt in Annalena Fröhlichs Videoarbeit. ... Die konstellative Verbindung von Theater, Wort, Musik und filmischer Montage machen im Herzen beider Stücke einen Antagonismus offenbar: Das landschaftlich Alpenidyll, durchwedelt von vergnügten Skifahrer*innen, oszilliert immer stärker zwischen mythisch überformter Lebens- und ökonomisch gesteuerter Systemwelt. Filmpoetisch und montagetechnisch wird dieser Effekt durch die Überlagerung von planetarisch anmutenden Objekten erzeugt. Die Zeitperspektive wird gelingend ausgehebelt und ein kosmischer Raum geschaffen, der Vergangenheit und Zukunft miteinander verbindet. So hinterlässt der Abend, besonders durch seine intermediale Überlagerung von Schauspiel und Film, ein Bild der sich immerwährend wiederholenden Katastrophe. ...» zu in den Alpen / apres les alpes Volkstheater wien / Neue Wiener Theaterkritik feb. 2023
Transatlantic flight video clip odd beholder
Interviews
«In der Lücke liegt die Möglichkeit zur existenz.» Preview to SONDER at der Bund
