Buy The Noise of Being
The Noise of Being attempts to piece together the dissonance that was produced and gathered at the 2017 Sonic Acts Festival. The festival focused on a theme that resonates deeply when thinking about the contemporary – namely, what it means to be human, to be part of a world that is an ever changing network. Many different ‘noises’ were featured and produced at the festival conference, in the clubs, museums, and cinemas. This book is by no means a definite conclusion: more of a reminder and a chance to continue speculating about the strange and anxious state of being.
The Noise of Being. Design by The Rodina.
The book opens with
Nina Power’s essay
Anticapitalism, Postcapitalism, Decapitalism, a reflection on ways of visualising opposition to capitalism.
Jennifer Gabrys is interviewed about sensor technologies and changing conceptualisations of the environment, political agency, the human, and the citizen. Referencing Arthur Rimbaud and Derek Walcott,
Louis Henderson’s poetic text presents his animistic materialist cinematic practice, which focuses on the critical reading of colonial histories. In her interview,
Ytasha Womack discusses how Afrofuturism, as an aesthetic and epistemology, facilitates different ways of navigating the world.
Daniel Rourke’s essay takes John Carpenter’s
The Thing as a starting point for a reflection on the ontology of things.
Rick Dolphijn’s study,
The Cracks of the Contemporary – The Wound, explicates living the wounds and the void.
In the context of computational biology and the Google Genomics project, artist
Joey Holder invented a speculative pharmaceutical company
Ophiux. Neworked algorithms, big data, and habituation on the internet are the focus of a conversation with
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun. In another interview,
Eyal Weizman vigorously explains the political interventions of Forensic Architecture and how they gather and present facts. In
By Any Lens Necessary,
Jamon Van Den Hoek examines how satellite images provide and create accounts of geopolitical conflicts.
Ingrid Burrington’s contribution,
Forever Noon on a Cloudless Day, analyses Google Earth imagery for traces of military architecture.
Juha van ’t Zelfde interviews the Dutch duo
Metahaven about their artistic practices in graphic design and film. The book concludes with a series of photographs that provide an impression of
The Noise of Being.
The Noise of Being features contributions by
Arie Altena,
Ingrid Burrington,
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun,
Rick Dolphijn,
Jennifer Gabrys,
Louis Henderson,
Jamon Van Den Hoek,
Joey Holder,
Rosa Menkman,
Metahaven,
Nina Power,
The Rodina,
Daniel Rourke,
Lucas van der Velden,
Eyal Weizman,
Ytasha Womack, and
Juha van ’t Zelfde.
Format: 17 x 24 cm
Edited by Mirna Belina
Published by Sonic Acts Press
Design by The Rodina
Book, 212pp., English text, illustrated
Special introduction price: 16.50 EUR (regular price 19.50 EUR)
Buy The Noise of Being at sonicacts.org/sashop