Verena Lercher boasts a 15-year background as a performer and holds a postgraduate degree in exMedia from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM), where she graduated with a diploma in Media Arts. Since 2021, she is head of the Artistic Research Project SOUNDING OUT IDENTITIES OF THE ARTIFICIAL VOICE funded by the prestigious TECHNE AHRC DTP stipend, under the supervision of Adrian Heathfield and Angus Carlyle in the UK.
Already during her tenure as a performer, Verena Lercher delved into artistic explorations of text-to-speech sound architectures, voice synthesis, and voice cloning, utilising various voice synthesis software and artificial intelligence (AI). Her interests lie in examining how media technologies and AI influence our identities, reshaping our monologues and dialogues, thereby affecting our perceptions of the world. Over seven years, she has cultivated an aesthetic practice that employs artificial voice as a creative medium. Lercher is particularly intrigued by the production of yet ‘unheard’ vocal sound artifacts, aiming to offer new perspectives on how synthetic vocal sound in live situations can alter our understanding of presence, the real and the artificial. Many of her works have been created as part of spaes: lab for spatial aesthetic in sound at Berlin Funkhaus, where she has been working as a permanent resident in dialogue with spaes on the plastic spatialization of vocal sounds in loudspeaker environments and VR/XR since its foundation in 2020
Verena Lercher’s works have been showcased at various venues and festivals across Europe, including Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum Graz (AT), FACYL: Festival for New Music and Performance (ESP), Kunstraum Fuhrwerkswaage Köln (DE), DLF: Kölner Kongress Erzählen in den neuen Medien (DE), Kiasma Theatre Helsinki (FN), Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg Berlin (DE), Künstlerhaus Graz (AT), Spreehalle Berlin (DE), counterflow Glasgow (GB-SCT), EXIT Glasgow (GB-SCT), Errant Sound Berlin (DE), and IKLEKTIC London (GB).
Her work ‘Authentic Fake News Apparatus’ was awarded the Digital Dramaturgy Prize NRW in 2020 (DE).
