Sonic Acts Festival is a thematic four day event that focuses on developments in art, music and science. The 17th edition takes place from 23 to 26 February 2017 in Amsterdam, titled The Noise of Being.
What did you think of Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being? Share your thoughts while they're still fresh! If you attended The Noise of Being, help us evaluate the festival by participating in our online survey.
Share your feedback!
A shortish report touching on some of the highlights of the 2017 Sonic Acts Festival, written by a biased insider.
Looking Back on The Noise of Being
A selection of media coverage, including interviews, previews and reviews.
Media Coverage
Progress Bar is a regular night for cutting-edge thinking and dancing, showcasing urgent sounds and voices while offering insight into the artistic practice of the most exciting contemporary artists.
Progress Bar on 1 April
Sonic Acts Festival 2017 has come to an end. All of us at Sonic Acts can look back proudly on a wonderful experience and would like to thank everyone involved for making The Noise of Being such a tremendous success!
Thank You!
Following its inception in 2016, the second edition of Sonic Acts Academy will take place from 22-25 February 2018 at various locations in Amsterdam.
Sonic Acts Academy 2018
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What did you think of Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being? Share your thoughts while they're still fresh! If you attended The Noise of Being, help us evaluate the festival by participating in our online survey.
Share your feedback!
A shortish report touching on some of the highlights of the 2017 Sonic Acts Festival, written by a biased insider.
Looking Back on The Noise of Being
A selection of media coverage, including interviews, previews and reviews.
Media Coverage
Progress Bar is a regular night for cutting-edge thinking and dancing, showcasing urgent sounds and voices while offering insight into the artistic practice of the most exciting contemporary artists.
Progress Bar on 1 April
Sonic Acts Festival 2017 has come to an end. All of us at Sonic Acts can look back proudly on a wonderful experience and would like to thank everyone involved for making The Noise of Being such a tremendous success!
Thank You!
Following its inception in 2016, the second edition of Sonic Acts Academy will take place from 22-25 February 2018 at various locations in Amsterdam.
Sonic Acts Academy 2018
Download the timetable for Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being and plan out your itinerary for the festival.
Download Timetable
If you bought a festival pass, day pass or conference pass, please pick up your wristband and programme brochure at the Info Desk, located at the specific festival locations of Sonic Acts.
Practical Information
In this new collaborative work by Eide and Lidén, participants are invited on a journey to a 46 meter high former water tower in Sint Jansklooster.
Excursion: Vertical Studies in Sint Jansklooster
On Friday 24 February Sonic Acts Festival hosts the XL edition of the only political party you can dance to. Watch the trailer by designer Sam Rofles.
Progress Bar S02E05 Trailer
The programme guide for Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being is now online.
Programme Guide
It's almost time for Sonic Acts Festival 2017! In the meantime, Sonic Acts has teamed up with music discovery service 22tracks and put together a Spotify playlist.
SONIC ACTS PLAYLISTS ON 22TRACKS
Sonic Acts has always been interested in new movements in the world of cinema as well as bringing to light forgotten gems from the obscured history of avant-garde filmmaking.
Film Programme at Sonic Acts: Contributing to the Noise
Cafe Sonore, VPRO Radio 6 platform for experimental jazz and improvisation, electro acoustic music, invited Sonic Acts director Lucas van der Velden and writer Arie Altena for a talk about the upcoming festival, 'The Noise of Being'. With music by Ja...
Café Sonore radio interview
The Noise of Being includes a number of workshops and masterclasses where you can sharpen your thinking and expand your artistic practice.
WORKSHOP & MASTERCLASS APPLICATION DEADLINE – 15 FEBRUARY
Day passes and tickets for individual events are now on sale. Taking place across four days, Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being includes a three-day conference, performances, film programme, workshops, masterclasses and club nights.
Tickets On Sale
One part of the Sonic Acts Festival is The Noise of Being exhibition at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. The exhibition opens on Wednesday 1 February at 19.00, admission is free and the programme will continue until midnight.
Exhibition now open!
AZAADI (Ewa Justka, Poulomi Desai), Cilantro (Angélica Castelló & Billy Roisz), Evian Christ, Jennifer Walshe, Joost Rekveld, Juha, Kuedo + Werkflow, Le1f, Richard McMaster, Michael Oswell, Natasha Ginwala, Pure, The Arditti Quartet, Wartone, Yeah ...
New names confirmed
As part of the Sonic Acts' pre-festival lineup, The Noise of Being exhibition artist Joey Holder will present her work and have a public conversation with fellow artist Nicky Assmann the evening of 15 February at Spui 25 in Amsterdam.
15 Feb: AN EVENING WITH JOEY HOLDER
On 8 February, as a precursor to the main Sonic Acts Festival programme, two of the most delightful things in life will combine for Taste The Doom at OT301: excellent whisky and a splendid mix of doom metal.
This week: Taste The Doom at OT301
Amy Cimini, An Ni, Asher Levitas, Bill Dietz, Coucou Chloe, DJ Earl, DJ Marfox, God Colony + Flohio, Jennifer Lucy Allan, John Palmesino, Kamixlo, Kate Cooper, Klein, Laurie Penny, Lyzza, Metahaven, Microtub, Nidia Minaj, Puce Mary + more
New artists announced
Before Sonic Acts Festival 2017 begins, Progress Bar on 21 January will feature performances by Bonaventure, Embaci, J. G. Biberkopf, Juha, s a r a s a r a and Traxman.
Progress Bar on 21 January
A limited number of Early Bird Festival Passes are available at a discount price of €75 (regular price: €90). Group Festival Passes are also available at €65 for groups of 5 or more. Regular Festival Passes will go on sale in January.
Early Bird Tickets on sale!
We are very excited to announce the first batch of artists in the 17th edition of Sonic Acts Festival.
First artists announced!
Festival
Sonic Acts Festival includes an exhibition, three-day conference, performances, film programme, workshops, masterclasses and club nights at Paradiso, Stedelijk Museum, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Bimhuis, De Brakke Grond, De School and Arti et Amicitiae. Click on a date to see more information about the programme. Download timetable as PDF.
Overview
Performances
Masterclasses
Exhibitions
Conference
Films
Overview
Thu 23 Feb
Fri 24 Feb
Sat 25 Feb
Sun 26 Feb
Have a look at the complete overview of the four day festival programme.
Programme by day
Overview of all performances, new audiovisual works, sound installations featuring a new wave of turbulent sonic explorers at Paradiso, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw, Bimhuis and De Brakke Grond.
Performances
During the three-day conference, internationally renowned artists and thinkers from various disciplines explore and speculate on what being human means in the present time.
Conference
This year we have gathered ‘single-channel’ films in one space, the Rode Zaal in De Brakke Grond, and entangled the film programme with topics discussed at the festival conference in the Expozaal, situated in the same venue.
Films
The Noise of Being exhibition speculates on the strange and anxious state of being human. With new works by five international artists – Justin Bennett, Zach Blas, Kate Cooper, Joey Holder, and Pinar Yoldas.
Exhibitions
The Noise of Being includes a number of workshops and masterclasses where you can sharpen your thinking and expand your artistic practice.
Workshops & Masterclasses
Sonic Acts has commissioned a series of new audiovisual works and sound installations, to be premiered at the The Noise of Being. The opening night at Paradiso features four new 35mm films.
Festival opening at Paradiso
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
The opening night continues at OT301 with Aïsha Devi, Emptyset, JK Flesh and Violence. Sonic Acts turns up the volume with an unruly lineup of artists whose work causes us to rethink noise itself.
Sonic Acts at De School
Thu 23 Feb
De School
As a precursor to the Sonic Acts Festival programme (23-26 February), every Wednesday leading up to it will offer a guided tour of the The Noise of Being exhibition in the afternoon, and then present a different special event in the evening.
Taste The Doom
Wed 8 Feb
OT301
As part of the Sonic Act’s pre-festival lineup, The Noise of Being exhibition artist Joey Holder will present her work and have a public conversation with fellow artist Nicky Assmann the evening of 15 February at Spui 25 in Amsterdam.
AN EVENING WITH JOEY HOLDER – 15 FEBRUARY
Wed 15 Feb
Spui 25
This two-day workshop will focus on what we might consider an ethnographic approach to the yoked practices of recording and composing.
Workshop by Ernst Karel - Through Sonic Ethnography
Tue 21 Feb - Wed 22 Feb
STEIM
In this new collaborative work by Eide and Lidén, participants are invited on a journey to a 46 meter high former water tower in Sint Jansklooster.
Excursion: Vertical Studies in Sint Jansklooster
Thu 23 Feb
Water Tower Sint Jansklooster
The full-day workshop is open to a maximum of 12 participants with an open heart and a critical mind.
Workshop by Pinar Yoldas
Thu 23 Feb
Rijksakademie
During the three-day conference, internationally renowned artists and thinkers from various disciplines explore and speculate on what being human means in the present time.
Conference Friday
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Homo Sapiens, Sitting in Darkness, Colossal Cave, Information Skies, The Stability of The System, Paradise Springs.
Film programme Friday
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
A thrilling programme at the Stedelijk Museum, with multisensory fireworks and performances that explore the subtleties and edges of sound and the noise of being.
Sonic Acts x Stedelijk
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
XL edition of the only political party you can dance to. As a regular night for cutting-edge thinking and dancing, Progress Bar showcases urgent sounds and voices in underground club culture.
Progress Bar at Paradiso
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
How to create gaps for new thoughts to emerge? How to crack open the contemporary situation? How to imagine a different future?
Conference Saturday
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Donna Haraway: Story Telling For Earthly Survival, He Who Eats Children, Greetings to the Ancestors, This Unwieldy Object.
Film programme Saturday
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
An evening and night of transcendent and ecstatic sensory experiences celebrating the noise of being. On Saturday 25 February we present audiovisual performances by fiercely independent, singular navigators of acoustic and electronic soundworlds.
Sonic Acts at Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Speculative fictions offer a glimpse of futures far beyond what we think we can imagine now, and can provide tools for resistance.
Conference Sunday
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Trace Evidence, Where Land Meets Sea, The Sea is History, Hyperstition.
Film programme Sunday
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
The programme for Sunday 26 February is built around the premiere of Luke Fowler’s new film Electro-Pythagoras: A Portrait of Martin Bartlett, a co-production of Sonic Acts and Stedelijk Museum.
A Portrait of Martin Bartlett at De Brakke Grond
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Following the success of the previous Critical Writing Workshops, a new edition will take place during Sonic Acts Festival 2017, from 23 to 26 February, facilitated by Jennifer Lucy Allan.
Critical Writing Workshop
Thu 23 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
The Noise of Being exhibition speculates on the strange and anxious state of being human. Works by five international artists – Justin Bennett, Zach Blas, Kate Cooper, Joey Holder and Pinar Yoldas.
The Noise of Being Exhibition
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone is a new sound work by Jana Winderen that reveals sounds of underwater life.
Jana Winderen - Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Muziekgebouw
This one-day workshop will be presented as an expanded lecture and theoretical seminar.
Masterclass by Zach Blas - Two Outsides: Informatic Opacity & Contra-Internet
Mon 27 Feb
Rijksakademie
Artists
Adamn Killa is a 19-year-old rapper from Chicago’s South Side. Adamn's music is characterised by unconventional, sullen rhymes and pristine synthetic instrumentals.
Adamn Killa
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Aïsha Devi emerged in 2013 with the EP Aura 4 Everyone on her own sanctuary-label Danse Noire followed by the 12″ Hakken Dub/Throat Dub in Summer 2014 alongside EPs from boundary blurring artists Vaghe Stelle and El Mahdy Jr.
Aïsha Devi
Thu 23 Feb
De School
Amy Cimini is a historian and performer of music from the 20th and 21st centuries. She earned her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology in 2011 from New York University.
Amy Cimini
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Christina Vantzou is a composer and visual artist based in Brussels, Belgium. She has composed and released three albums of ambient-classical music and has developed a form of graphic musical notation influenced by abstract minimalists.
Christina Vantzou
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Armen Avanessian studied philosophy and political science in Vienna and Paris. After completing his dissertation in literature, he worked at the Free University Berlin from 2007-2014.
Armen Avanessian
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Ben Russell is an artist and curator whose films, installations, and performances foster a deep engagement with the history and semiotics of the documentary image.
Ben Russell
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
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Adamn Killa is a 19-year-old rapper from Chicago’s South Side. Adamn's music is characterised by unconventional, sullen rhymes and pristine synthetic instrumentals.
Adamn Killa
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Aïsha Devi emerged in 2013 with the EP Aura 4 Everyone on her own sanctuary-label Danse Noire followed by the 12″ Hakken Dub/Throat Dub in Summer 2014 alongside EPs from boundary blurring artists Vaghe Stelle and El Mahdy Jr.
Aïsha Devi
Thu 23 Feb
De School
Amy Cimini is a historian and performer of music from the 20th and 21st centuries. She earned her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology in 2011 from New York University.
Amy Cimini
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
An Ni is an Estonian DJ, currently based in Netherlands, Her sonic palette is genre fluid, embracing raw and hard hitting percussions.
An Ni
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Arditti Quartet enjoy a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music.
Arditti Quartet
Thu 23 Feb
Armen Avanessian studied philosophy and political science in Vienna and Paris. After completing his dissertation in literature, he worked at the Free University Berlin from 2007-2014.
Armen Avanessian
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Asher Levitas is perhaps best known as part of Old Apparatus, the acclaimed and enigmatic London experimental outfit. Over the last few years he has featured on releases for labels including Deep Medi, Houndstooth and Left Blank.
Asher Levitas
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
AZAADI is the duo of Ewa Justka and Poulomi Desai.
AZAADI
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Ben Russell is an artist and curator whose films, installations, and performances foster a deep engagement with the history and semiotics of the documentary image.
Ben Russell
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Composer and writer Bill Dietz, born in Bisbee, Arizona, and based in Berlin since 2003, is one of the supervisors of the Maryanne Amacher Archive.
Bill Dietz
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
BJ Nilsen is a Swedish composer and sound artist based in Amsterdam. His work primarily focuses on the sounds of nature and how they affect humans.
BJ Nilsen
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Christina Vantzou is a composer and visual artist based in Brussels, Belgium. She has composed and released three albums of ambient-classical music and has developed a form of graphic musical notation influenced by abstract minimalists.
Christina Vantzou
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Cilantro presents a world full of enigmas, labyrinths, sometimes abrasive, sometimes ecstatic, a complex and delicate subjectivity. Cilantro deals with blurry edges of contradictory matters.
Cilantro
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Coucou Chloé is French composer and vocalist, who offers spine-tingling sensuality for the club, undercut by a poisonous vein of menace in songs like lead-single skin like sin.
Coucou Chloé
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Daniel Rourke is a writer and artist based in London. In his work Daniel exploits speculative and science fiction in search of a radical ‘outside’ to the human(ities).
Daniel Rourke
Sun 26 Feb - Thu 23 Feb
De Brakke Grond
David Roden teaches Philosophy at the Open University His published work has addressed the relationship between deconstruction and analytic philosophy, philosophical naturalism, the metaphysics of sound and posthumanism.
David Roden
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
DJ Earl entered the musical world in 2005 by means of dance battles. He participates local parties in rollerskating rinks, building up his unfailing knowledge of this culture.
DJ Earl
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
DJ Marfox is a downright urban, suburban and ghetto legend in Lisbon, as well as a renowned name on a worldwide network of dedicated seekers of new developments in electronic dance music.
DJ Marfox
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
"Eisbein is a German culinary dish of pickled ham hock, Benny Nilsen, usually slightly laptop. In parts of Germany it is known as Schweinshaxe, Gert-Jan Prins, and drums and electronics".
EISBEIN
Wed 8 Feb
OT301
Emptyset is the innovative electronic duo of James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas. The pair shares a history in Bristol’s underground music scene as well as an impressive list of production credits.
Emptyset
Thu 23 Feb
De School
Erica Scourti was born in Athens, Greece and is now based in London. Her work across different media draws on personal experience to explore life, labour, gender and love in a fully mediated world.
Erica Scourti
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Erika Balsom is a senior lecturer in Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King’s College London. Her next book, After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation, is forthcoming this spring from Columbia University Press.
Erika Balsom
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Ernst Karel makes electroacoustic music and experimental nonfiction sound works for multichannel installation and performance, and collaborates with filmmakers and artists in making audiovisual work.
Ernst Karel
Tue 21 Feb - Wed 22 Feb
STEIM
Espen Sommer Eide is a musician and artist based in Bergen. With his music projects Phonophani and Alog, he has composed and performed a series of experimental electronic works.
Espen Sommer Eide
Thu 23 Feb
Water Tower Sint Jansklooster
Esther Urlus is an artist working with motion picture film formats Super8, 16mm and 35mm; resulting in films, performances and installations.
Esther Urlus
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Evian Christ is a producer, DJ and songwriter from Ellesmere Port. He is signed to Tri Angle Records. His music is described as deconstructionist, mixing trance with dark industrial beats.
Evian Christ
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Eyal Weizman is an architect, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures, and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Eyal Weizman
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
In 2017 God Colony and Flohio are taking their friendship and constant collaboration out of the studio and into the club.
Flohio
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Geert-Jan Hobijn and Staalplaat Soundsystem are inseparable from their sound systems, from all the tools, toys, contraptions, appliances, vehicles, buildings, trees, and environments.
Geert-Jan Hobijn
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Gijs Gieskes is an industrial designer from the Netherlands specialising in the design of electronic devices, for audiovisual use. His inventions include Relais de Vactrol and Phase-Locked Loop technology.
Gijs Gieskes
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
In 2017 God Colony and Flohio are taking their friendship and constant collaboration out of the studio and into the club.
God Colony
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
HC Gilje is a Norwegian artist who works with realtime environments, installations, live performance, set design and single channel video.
HC Gilje
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Helen Verran is an Australian historian and philosopher of science. She has spent nearly thirty years working with Aboriginal Australians in northeast Arnhem Land.
Helen Verran
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Ingrid Burrington writes, makes maps, and tells jokes about places, politics, and the weird feelings people have about both.
Ingrid Burrington
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Isabell Lorey is a political theorist at the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, and co-editor of transversal texts.
Isabell Lorey
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Jamon Van Den Hoek is a geographer and remote sensing scientist. He pursues satellite imagery and machine learning approaches to document social-environmental consequences of armed violent conflict.
Jamon Van Den Hoek
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Jana Winderen researches the hidden depths with the latest technology; her work reveals the complexity and strangeness of the unseen world beneath. The audio topography of the oceans and the depth of ice crevasses are brought to the surface.
Jana Winderen
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Jennifer Gabrys is Reader in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Principal Investigator on the European Research Council funded project, Citizen Sense.
Jennifer Gabrys
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Jennifer Lucy Allan is a writer, researcher, curator and label head, currently working on a PhD at CRiSAP on the social and cultural history of the foghorn.
Jennifer Lucy Allan
Thu 23 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Jennifer Walshe studied composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002.
Jennifer Walshe
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Justin K. Broadrick began, aged 15, with the recording of his first — and last — record with Napalm Death. From there he formed pioneering industrial metal group Godflesh.
JK Flesh
Thu 23 Feb
De School
London-based artist Joey Holder graduated from Kingston University in 2001 and completed an MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2010.
Joey Holder
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
John Also Bennett is a composer, musician and sound designer based in Brooklyn, New York who uses synthesis in addition to acoustic instruments and sound.
John Also Bennett
John Palmesino is an architect and urbanist. He has established Territorial Agency together with Ann-Sofi Rönnskog. Territorial Agency is an independent organisation that innovatively promotes and works for sustainable territorial transformations.
John Palmesino
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Joost Rekveld is motivated by what we can learn from a dialogue with machines. In his work, he explores the sensory effects of systems of his own design, often inspired by forgotten corners in the history of science and technology.
Joost Rekveld
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Progress Bar founder Juha plays new internet dance music. Since 2014, Juha has been artistic director of Lighthouse in Brighton, uniting the worlds of culture and technology.
Juha
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Justin Bennett is an artist working with sound and image. He studied sculpture and electronic music and much of his work combines the two aspects of sound and space.
Justin Bennett
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
Kabir Carter’s work has been exhibited and presented throughout Europe and the United States. His interests include architectural acoustics, bioacoustics, body culture, and social dancing in the late twentieth century.
Kabir Carter
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Kamixlo's music lies at the riveting, emergent edge of grime, reggateon and experimental bass dimensions. The London-located producer's Demonico EP with Visionist's Codes X PAN marked out bold, unique new territory.
Kamixlo
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Heralded as “one of the most exciting young composers in North America” by the Guardian and a “unique navigator of the electronic world” by NPR, Kara-Lis Coverdale is a fiercely independent voice in new music that champions omnivorous approac...
Kara-Lis Coverdale
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Karl Lemieux’s films, installations, and performances have screened internationally in museums, galleries, music venues and film festivals. He is more commonly known as the ninth member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Karl Lemieux
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Kate Cooper lives and works in London and Amsterdam. She is co-founder of Auto Italia, the London-based, artist-led initiative.
Kate Cooper
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
Keiko Prince was born and educated in Tokyo, Japan. She was invited to join CAVS, MIT in 1971 to work on the Charles River Project — revitalisation of the then deteriorated river environ as a public open space.
Keiko Prince
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Just out of high school, Chicago rapper Killavesi has already released a handful of quality tracks on Soundcloud, weaving her jaunty flow through an array of glittery, luxurious beats produced by the likes of H!tkidd, Mechatok, and hi tom.
Killavesi
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
South London based musician Klein is an artist who’s neoteric vision has seen her quickly become one of the UK’s most intriguing and unpinnable producers and performers.
Klein
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Kuedo is the alias of Jamie Teasdale, formerly one half of Vex’d, whose 2005 album Degenerate re-wrote the UK bass rulebook. His most recent album Slow Knife is a deep, undulating dive into immersive filmscapes and impressionistic narration
Kuedo
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Laurie Penny is an award-winning journalist, essayist, public speaker, writer, activist, internet nanocelebrity. Laurie writes about politics, social justice, pop culture, feminism, technology and mental health.
Laurie Penny
Sun 26 Feb - Thu 23 Feb
De Brakke Grond
In a world full of rappers claiming to be one of a kind, Le1f (born Khalif Diouf) is a real deal original, a fascinatingly complicated personality full of seeming contractions.
Le1f
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Lukas Marxt is a filmmaker whose main goal is to capture time. Deserted places and violent geographies such as oil rigs or Arctic coastlines provide opportunities to pursue this quest.
Lukas Marxt
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Luke Fowler is an artist, filmmaker and musician based in Glasgow. He studied printmaking at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.
Luke Fowler
Sun 26 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Lyzza is a promising young DJ and producer who is currently on the rise from within the scene in Amsterdam. Being born and raised in Brazil she combines her Brazilian roots through baile funk mixed with her taste of bass heavy club music.
Lyzza
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Maryam Monalisa Gharavi is an artist, writer, and theorist. Her work in film, video, performance, text, photography, drawing, and sound explores the interplay between aesthetic and political valences in the public domain.
Maryam Monalisa Gharavi
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Matthew Biederman works across media and milieus, architectures and systems, communities and continents since 1990. He creates works where light, space and sound reflect on the intricacies of perception.
Matthew Biederman
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Founded by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden, Metahaven is a collective working across design, art, and filmmaking.
Metahaven
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Marcel Weber is a visual artist who works with imagery, light and space. He has been creating and directing audiovisual performances, installations and video works since 2001 both under his own name and as half of former artist-duo MFO.
MFO
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Microtub is the world’s first microtonal tuba ensemble. In 2009, Robin Hayward developed the first fully microtonal tuba in collaboration with the German instrument manufacturer B&S, and Microtub was established the following year.
Microtub
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
MSHR is the art collective of Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy. The duo builds and explores systems to reveal pathways toward ecstatic sensory experience.
MSHR
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Lyon based My Sword has impressed over the past few years with unusual tracks, all of which blur the lines between original composition, bootleg and blend.
My Sword
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Natasha Ginwala is a curator, researcher, and writer. She is curator of Contour Biennale 8 and curatorial advisor for documenta 14 (2017).
Natasha Ginwala
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Nick Axel is an architectural critic, theorist, editor and researcher based in Rotterdam. He is currently Deputy Editor of e-flux Architecture, where his work focuses on experimenting with the media and temporal logics of the architectural project.
Nick Axel
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Nídia Minaj's Danger, her first physical record - and quickly sold out - released on Príncipe last year, is an outstanding & powerful collection of tracks, her own fiercely distinct aesthetic voice.
Nidia Minaj
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Nina Power is a cultural critic, social theorist, philosopher and translator. Power teaches Philosophy at the University of Roehampton and Critical Writing in Art & Design at the Royal College of Art. She has written widely on Philosophy, politics, f...
Nina Power
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Noortje Marres is Associate Professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM) at the University of Warwick (UK). She studied Sociology and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Amsterdam and the Ecole des Mines in ...
Noortje Marres
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Organ Tapes is a producer, singer and DJ raised in Shanghai and currently living in London. Organ Tapes makes emotion-driven music that reflects himself and the people, places and fictions that comprise him.
Organ Tapes
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Peter Burr is an artist from Brooklyn, NY specialising in animation and installation. His recent work explores the concept of an endlessly mutating death labyrinth.
Peter Burr
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Peter Frase is a writer and editor at Jacobin magazine, one of the largest left-wing publications in the United States. He has written about work, labor, technology, and the future of capitalism.
Peter Frase
Fri 24 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Pierce Warnecke is a sound and video artist from the US, based in Europe for over a decade. He works equally in the sonic and visual domains via performances, installations and compositions.
Pierce Warnecke
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Pinar Yoldas is an infradisciplinary designer, artist and researcher currently based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work develops within biological sciences and digital technologies.
Pinar Yoldas
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
An unrelenting fear of dread and coldness penetrates the avant-garde power electronics of Copenhagen-based artist Puce Mary, the nom de plume of Frederikke Hoffmeier.
Puce Mary
Wed 8 Feb
OT301
Pure sculpts abstract sonic stories from evolving textures, pulsating repetitions and feedbacks over slow, distorted, broken beats.
Pure
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Radboud Mens is a sound-artist, composer and sound designer who is working with sound since 1982. He started creating noise-machines in 1988.
Radboud Mens
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Rainer Kohlberger is an Austrian born freelance visual artist and film maker living in Berlin. His work is primarily based on algorithmic compositions with reductionistic aesthetics influenced by flatness, drones and interference.
Rainer Kohlberger
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Rick Dolphijn is a writer and a philosopher. He wrote Foodscapes: towards a Deleuzian Ethics of Consumption, New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies (with Iris van der Tuin).
Rick Dolphijn
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Robert J. Russett (May 22 1935 - March 26 2015) was a media artist, educator and writer whose animated films and installations were exhibited internationally.
Robert Russett
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Roly began his career as part of production duo Vex'd, releasing records on Subtext and Planet Mu. Roly later released two solo albums on Subtext under his own name – Aftertime and Life Cycle of a Massive Star.
Roly Porter
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Sam Rolfes is a Chicago and New York based mixed-format digital artist and director. Using the human body as a mark making device and underlying structure, he crafts diffusive psychosexual worlds that sublimate space and identity.
Sam Rolfes
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Sarah is a cultural geographer whose published work on cultures of nature includes a number of influential books such as Hybrid Geographies (2001), Using Social Theory (2004) and Political Matter (2010).
Sarah J. Whatmore
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Sergei Tcherepnin operates at the intersections of sound, sculpture, and theatre.
Sergei Tcherepnin
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Signe Lidén is an artist based in Bergen. Her installations and performances examine man-made landscapes and their resonance.
Signe Lidén
Thu 23 Feb
Water Tower Sint Jansklooster
Stefan Tcherepnin is a composer and visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. His work often employs music and performance in conjunction with sculptural elements to create installations that convey multiple narratives.
Stefan Tcherepnin
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Susan Schuppli is an artist and researcher based in London whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disasters.
Susan Schuppli
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Tina Frank is a graphic designer and media artist aswell as professor for graphic design at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria.
Tina Frank
Thu 23 Feb
Paradiso
Uli K is a London-based singer, producer and member of the collective of artists called Bala Club.
Uli K
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
A multi-instrumentalist, Olin Caprison composes, produces, and performs for all of VIOLENCE's output. Their compositions are known for their complexity, shifting between and combining multiple styles of music in single songs.
VIOLENCE
Thu 23 Feb
De School
Wartone is a Manchester-born DJ and feature of Amsterdam’s underground club scene, presenting a series of DIY parties. He has released music on Wasabi Tapes, while tracks have appeared in mixes by Tropical Waste, YYAA Recordings and NODE.
Wartone
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She has studied both Systems Design Engineering and English Literature, which she combines and mutates in her current work on digital media.
Wendy Chun
Sat 25 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Werkflow is a games engine focused, digital arts studio based in London. Werkflow was founded in 2013 by James B Stringer, Tom Wandrag and Clifford Sage and specializes in Next Gen Cinematography.
Werkflow
Woody Sullender is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His pieces encompass a myriad of media including sculpture, performance, theatre, music, installation, architecture, origami, and even sonic weaponry.
Woody Sullender
Fri 24 Feb
Stedelijk Museum
Yeah You are Elvin Brandhi (vocals & electronics) and MYKL JAXN (electronics & vocals). They started making new music every day early in 2013.
Yeah You
Sat 25 Feb
Muziekgebouw & Bimhuis
Yon Eta has a maximalist approach regarding sound while consciously striving to limit the options in the production process of his music.
Yon Eta
Fri 24 Feb
Paradiso
Ytasha L. Womack is an author, filmmaker, independent scholar and dancer. She is author of the award winning book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture.
Ytasha L. Womack
Sun 26 Feb - Thu 23 Feb
De Brakke Grond
Zach Blas is an artist and writer whose practice engages technics and minoritarian politics. Currently, he is a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Zach Blas
Wed 1 Feb - Sun 26 Feb
Arti et Amicitiae
Tickets
About
The first edition of the Sonic Acts festival took place in 1994. Over the years, it has established itself as a thematic festival with a strong focus on contemporary and historical developments at the intersections of art, science, music and technology. Each festival edition explore the chosen theme by means of an international conference, a wide range of concerts and performances, exhibitions and screenings, and embraces a broad spectrum of fields, practices and disciplines. Over the past half decade, Sonic Acts has shifted its perspective from the Universe to planet Earth, from Travelling Time (2012) and The Dark Universe (2013) to The Geologic Imagination (2015). In its 2017 edition, the festival takes its next step, under the title The Noise of Being.
View previous editions of Sonic Acts Festival
Info
The Noise of Being is about what it also means to be human, to be part of a world that is an ever changing network.
The Noise of Being
Sonic Acts Festival 2017 takes place at Paradiso, Stedelijk, Muziekgebouw, Bimhuis, de Brakke Grond, OT301 and Arti et Amicitiae.
Venues & Info desk
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and stay informed about our news and activities. You can also subscribe to our newsletter. Our videos are published on Vimeo and you can find our photos on Flickr.
Contact & Press
Sonic Acts is generously funded by Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Mondriaan Fonds, Fonds 21, VSB Fonds and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
Partners
Amsterdam also offers a lot of amazing hotels and hostels located in and around the city centre, see for example hotels.com and booking.com.
Accommodation
Sonic Acts Festival is doing well: in recent years, we saw the size of our programme and attendance figures grow steadily. To continue to offer programmes of superb quality, we invest heavily in talent and research.
Support us
The Noise of Being is about what it also means to be human, to be part of a world that is an ever changing network.
The Noise of Being
Sonic Acts Festival 2017 takes place at Paradiso, Stedelijk, Muziekgebouw, Bimhuis, de Brakke Grond, OT301 and Arti et Amicitiae.
Venues & Info desk
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and stay informed about our news and activities. You can also subscribe to our newsletter. Our videos are published on Vimeo and you can find our photos on Flickr.
Contact & Press
Sonic Acts is generously funded by Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Mondriaan Fonds, Fonds 21, VSB Fonds and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.
Partners
Amsterdam also offers a lot of amazing hotels and hostels located in and around the city centre, see for example hotels.com and booking.com.
Accommodation
Sonic Acts Festival is doing well: in recent years, we saw the size of our programme and attendance figures grow steadily. To continue to offer programmes of superb quality, we invest heavily in talent and research.