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Panel 2 : Dark Signals
In the panel Dark Signals the focus shifts towards the arts, and how they explore unknown behaviours of sound and electromagnetic signals. Raviv Ganchrow sheds light on how he researches sound and listening. Honor Harger shows how contemporary arts take inspiration from science, especially physics and astronomy, and how artistic research feeds back into science.
Keynote Michael J. Morgan: Representation of Space in the Brain (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
As Descartes realized, there is no obvious reason why an image has to represented as another image in the brain. Yet, it is, at least in the early stages of representation. Reasons that have been advanced for this topographical representation include the need to establish ‘local sign’ during the development of the brain; the advantages of short-range connections over long nerve tracts; the simple mapping of sensory information onto motor maps; and the need to keep the maps from different senses in register.
Paul Prudence: Generative Spaces: The Spatiotemporal Subroutines of Runtime Planet Earth (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
From the global to the microscopic, the Earth runs subroutines that generate a multiplicity of complex patterns & emergent spaces – their runtime(s) lasting from anywhere between a few milliseconds to millions of years. Paul Prudence discusses the metamorphic algorithms, hydrodynamic computations, aeolian protocols and sonic mechanisms, sometimes acting in collaboration with living organisms that define the dynamic generative forms and spaces around us.
Science Fiction by Omar Muñoz-Cremers and ARC
RESEARCH SERIES #1 The publication of The Absence of Light inaugurates the Sonic Acts Research Series, in combination with the ARC panel videos we organised in cooperation with Simon Ings of ARC – ‘a magazine of futures and fiction from the makers New Scientist’.
Billy Roisz & Dieter Kovačič – Bring Me the Head of Henri Chrétien!
Billy Roisz and Dieter Kovačič explore the world of cinematic formats based on the genre that experimented with the width of the screen to display spectacular landscapes: Western movies and their wide span of (male) heroism between life and death. Commissioned for Vertical Cinema
Edward Shanken and Yolande Harris: Tuning In and Spacing Out: The Art and Science of the Presentness of Sound (Sonic Acts XIII,2010)
A presentation that explores sound and space as modes of understanding environmental phenomena. Drawing on a variety of examples from sound art, visual art, and science, Harris and Shanken weave together extreme ideas from the mythic and scientific significance of marine mammals to the surprising interconnectedness of the sea andouter-space.
Dark Ecology Interview Tim Morton
RESEARCH SERIES #6 During the first Dark Ecology journey, which took place from 9 to 12 October 2014, a group of artists, researchers and theorists travelled the border zone between Norway and Russia. On the last day we sat down with Timothy Morton, author of amongst others The Ecological Thought and Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World.
Tim Maughan interviews Liam Young
RESEARCH SERIES #7 One of the speakers at the next Sonic Acts Festival is speculative architect Liam Young. Together with Kate Davies he runs the Unknown Fields Division, ‘a nomadic design studio that ventures out on annual expeditions to the ends of the Earth exploring unreal and forgotten landscapes, alien terrains and obsolete ecologies’.
Hans Christian Gilje: Conversations with Spaces (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
HC Gilje researches how audiovisual technology can be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces. In his own work he works with real-time environments, installations, live performance, set design and single-channel video to make this research tangible.
Keynote Derrick de Kerckhove: Beyond Perspective, From the Point of View to the Point of Being (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
We may be traversing a Neo-Baroque era where the effects of a dominantly visual episteme are reversed in multimedia, 3D and VR. In the global environmental perception that is developing, the point of being, that is a proprioceptive sensation of the world, may be doubling if not replacing the point of view as the principal referent of my position in space.
An interview with Hillel Schwartz
RESEARCH SERIES #9 During Dutch Design Week, on Saturday 25 October 2014, Sonic Acts presented ‘A Day of Noise’ in Temporary Art Centre (TAC) in Eindhoven. The keynote speaker was cultural historian Hillel Schwartz, undoubtedly one of the world’s foremost experts on noise.
Christopher Salter: Immersion, Absorption and Dissolution in Cross-modal Environments (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
This talk will examine the repercussions of Turrell’s and Irwin’s proposal to investigate the thresholds of perception in an experiential environment. Specifically, I will focus on the conception of the self and body in both contemporary artistic practices with media coupled with recent concepts arising from enactive cognition. What role does spatiality play in these synchretic perceptions? What happens to the ‘sensing self’ and its embodiment in audio-visual environments that overload or reduce our perception and how does this self expand or dissolve through such encounters?
Acousmonium: Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
German electronic music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius (AT) has been active in music for over thirty years. Over his prolific career, Roedelius’ musical output has covered a great deal of sonic territory and emotional range: from deeply introspective to very rhythmic, from experimental improvisations to heart-felt vignettes.
Interview with Noam Elcott on Verticality
RESEARCH SERIES #12 In February 2014 the Vertical Cinema programme was screened at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The programme was accompanied by four long lectures by experts on cinema, video, new media, and contemporary art. The American scholar Noam M. Elcott gave an impressive lecture-presentation which also sketched a possible genealogy of 'vertical cinema'.
Interview with Bart Rutten on Verticality
RESEARCH SERIES #13 In February 2014 the Vertical Cinema project was presented in the Stedelijk Museum. The programme was accompanied by lectures by experts on cinema, video, new media, and contemporary art, one of which was Bart Rutten, at that time still curator of modern and contemporary art at the Stedelijk Museum.
Panel: Perception and Illusion: Ulf Langheinrich
Cinema creates an illusion through the projection of 2D-images and sound. But what if we go beyond the audiovisual illusion? And what are the tricks that cinema can use to affect how the brain processes information in the visual cortex? A researcher and a media artist share their views.
Interview Jananne Al-Ani
RESEARCH SERIES #24 Born in Iraq, London-based artist Jananne Al-Ani engages with the politics of the image. In her works in photography, film and video, Al-Ani interrogates our ways of seeing by undermining the structures of scale and perspective in which visual culture is shaped. While her conceptual application is subversive, her methods are gentle, often resulting in evocations of assumptions which are quietly unsettled. Julian Ross interviewed Al-Ani when she attended the Sonic Acts Festival in 2015 for the screening of her two films Shadow Sites I and Shadow Sites II.
Interview with Don Foresta
RESEARCH SERIES #14 In June 2014 Sonic Acts invited research artist Don Foresta to give two presentations in the Netherlands. Before his lecture presentation at STEIM in Amsterdam, Arie Altena sat down with him to talk about his experiences, working with Nam June Paik, Woody and Steina Vasulka, and other pioneers of video art, and his involvement in the first experiments with network art.
The Stack and the Post-human User: an interview with Benjamin Bratton
RESEARCH SERIES #15 Benjamin Bratton is a theorist whose work spans Philosophy, Art and Design. He is Associate Professor of Visual Arts and Director of The Center for Design and Geopolitics at the University of California, San Diego. He is also Professor of Digital Design at The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. In his book The Stack, due to be published in December 2015 by MIT Press, Benjamin Bratton develops a political perspective on computation on the planetary scale.
Interview with Karl Lemieux
RESEARCH SERIES #16 Live presence is not often considered to be a part of cinema, but Karl Lemieux thinks it should be. Using 16mm projectors as his principal tools, the Montreal-based artist employs various tactics to manipulate both the film material and apparatus itself during the act of projection—an approach that results in a distortion of the image. Working with Swedish composer and sound artist BJ Nilsen, Lemieux shot footage on the border between Russia and Norway. This would be the basis of their collaborative performance, unearthed, presented at the 2015 Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam.
Interview with Lukas Marxt
RESEARCH SERIES #17 In one static shot, Lukas Marxt’s Reign of Silence (2013) observes a vessel boat swirl in circles in the Arctic sea and watches the ripples spread. While it’s only for a moment, the central theme that occupies Marxt makes itself visible – the dialogue between human and geological existence. As he journeys to the far corners of the earth, the Austrian artist lets so-called ‘deep time’ – the unimaginably vast time scale that describes geological processes – intersect with what we consider ‘real time.’
Interview with Morton Subotnick: The computer as a performer-composer-conductor tool
RESEARCH SERIES #22 In October 2013 Morton Subotnick performed Silver Apples of the Moon, with visuals by Lillevan at Kontraste Festival in Krems (Austria). After the concert Arie Altena sat down with him to discuss his particular approach to electronic music.
Interview with Mark Williams on the geological record
RESEARCH SERIES #18 Sonic Acts was very happy to welcome Mark Williams to the 2015 festival ‘The Geologcic Imagination’. After his lecture on the fundamental changes in the earth systems, Williams talked to Sonic Acts' Liesbeth Koot and Menno Grootveld.
The Geologic Imagination: Lectures, Interviews and Recordings
RESEARCH SERIES #19 To get you in the mood for the upcoming Dark Ecology Journey, Research Series #19 includes recorded lectures, excerpts of live performances, sound recordings and interviews made during the 2015 festival The Geologic Imagination. With contributors such as Timothy Morton, Jana Winderen, Espen Sommer Eide, BJ Nilsen and Karl Lemieux, Raviv Ganchrow, Ele Carpenter and Graham Harman.
Combining Compositional Precision and Uncontrolled Processes: Interview with Thomas Ankersmit
RESEARCH SERIES #23 On 12 October 2013 Arie Altena interviewed Thomas Ankersmit about his work and his set-up for his concert the following day in the Minoritenkirche in Krems. Ankersmit was there as part of the 2013 Kontraste Festival
Alastair Reynolds: White Noise (Sonic Acts XV, 2013)
About Sonic Acts XV - The Dark Universe: The Dark Universe is the unknown universe, the universe that remains mysterious. The Dark Universe is also the weird universe that draws us in and enfolds us in its shroud, blacker than burned black. Seekers of the unknown and the undiscovered must be able to...
Nikel and Nikel Materiality
RESEARCH SERIES #25 Nikel is a small Russian mining city near the border with Norway. It was founded in the 1930s after enormous quantities of nickel were found nearby. At the time the area was Finnish. An infrastructure for mining the nickel was built in the 1930s with help from Canadian companies.
What Is Dark Ecology?
RESEARCH SERIES #26 In this essay, which draws on his book Dark Ecology, For a Logic of Coexistence, Timothy Morton — who originally coined the term dark ecology — explains what dark ecology is. He also argues how agrilogistics underpins our ecological crisis and our view of the world.
BRING ME THE HEAD OF HENRY CHRÉTIEN!
BRING ME THE HEAD OF HENRY CHRÉTIEN! BY BILLY ROISZ & DIETER KOVAČIĆ 8’17’’ 35MM VERTICAL CINEMASCOPE COLOUR SOUND MASTERING: MARTIN SIEWERT There’s no sentiment as bold as the one in a duel shot in cinemascope. There’s no emotional drop height as big as in abstract vertical movies. ...
Dark Ecology
Dark Ecology was a three-year art, research and commissioning project, initiated by Sonic Acts and Kirkenes-based curator Hilde Methi, and in collaboration with Norwegian and Russian partners. Dark Ecology unfolded through research, the creation of new artworks, and a public programme that was presented in the zone on both sides of the border in 2014, 2015 and 2016. darkecology.net
Keynote Derrick de Kerckhove: Beyond Perspective, From the Point of View to the Point of Being (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/keynote-derrick-de-kerckhove-beyond-perspective-from-the-point-of-view-to-the-point-of-being-sonic-acts-xiii-2010/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. Between the Renaissance and Cézanne, the poetics...
Christopher Salter: Immersion, Absorption and Dissolution in Cross-modal Environments (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/christopher-salter-immersion-absorption-and-dissolution-in-cross-modal-environments-sonic-acts-xiii-2010/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. In 1968, an unrealized proposal developed in 1968 by visua...
Hans Christian Gilje: Conversations with Spaces (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/hans-christian-gilje-conversations-with-spaces/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. HC Gilje researches how audiovisual technology can be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physi...
We Are All in the Mud
RESEARCH SERIES #32 Eyal Weizman is a London-based Israeli architect, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures, and writer, who focuses on architecture as a form of political intervention and the role of architecture in modern urban warfare. Lucas van der Velden interviewed Eyal Weizman after his lecture at the 2017 Sonic Acts Festival.
Steven Connor: Auscultations (Listening In) (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/steven-connor-auscultations-listening-in/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. A lecture which rethinks listening through tinnitus and other internal body sounds, touching on quietness, inaudibility, a...
Edward Shanken&Yolande Harris: Tuning In and Spacing Out: The Art and Science of the Presentness of Sound (Sonic Acts XIII,2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/edward-shankenyolande-harris-tuning-in-and-spacing-out-the-art-and-science-of-the-presentness-of-sound-sonic-acts-xiii2010/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. A presentation that explores sound and s...
Panel The Hot Space in Music (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology Steven Connor (UK) is a writer, cultural critic and the Academic Director of the London Consortium. He is the author of books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce, ventriloquism, skin, flies, and other topics, and is n...
Jennifer Walshe, Timothy Morton, Áine O’Dwyer, Lee Patterson, M.C. Schmidt, Streifenjunko and Vilde&Inga – Time Time Time
Time Time Time is an operatic work written by Jennifer Walshe and Timothy Morton, which premiered at Sonic Acts Festival 2019. Morton and Walshe join forces with an ensemble of renowned musicians and sound artists to explore the multiplicity of temporalities at the heart of being human.
Dirk Hebel & Jörg Stollmann: Misuse/Technology/Architecture (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
http://www.sonicacts.com/portal/index.php/dirk-hebel-jorg-stollmann-misusetechnologyarchitecture-sonic-acts-xiii-2010/ Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. Strategies of misuse reveal the challenges and potential of space and can be turned int...
Paul Prudence: Generative Spaces: The Spatiotemporal Subroutines of Runtime Planet Earth (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. From the global to the microscopic, the Earth runs subroutines that generate a multiplicity of complex patterns & emergent spaces – their runtime(s) lasting from anywhere between a few milliseconds to mill...
Keynote Michael J. Morgan: Representation of Space in the Brain (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. As Descartes realized, there is no obvious reason why an image has to represented as another image in the brain. Yet, it is, at least in the early stages of representation. Reasons that have been advanced fo...
Programme announced! Rosa Pistola, No Bra, Lone Taxidermist, SHYBOI and lots more confirmed for Sonic Acts Academy 2020
The Sonic Acts Academy 2020 programme is now online, with a new wave of artists and speakers announced for a packed three days of live, immersive, expanded and charged experiences, and vital critical perspectives.
Panel The Dream Machine, Part 2: Kurt Hentschläger: Flicker, Feedback, Void (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. "The Dream Machine" broached the issue of time and senses in cinema. In the past and the present, artists using the flicker effect conceive of cinema as a dream machine - sometimes literally. Henschlägers t...
Acousmonium: Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. German electronic music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius (AT) has been active in music for over thirty years, has . He is a pioneer in electronic music, not least for his collaborations with musicians and compo...
Panel Perception and Illusion: Ulf Langheinrich: Interference Moments (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. Cinema creates an illusion through the projection of 2D-images and sound. But what if we go beyond the audiovisual illusion? And what are the tricks that cinema can use to affect how the brain pr...
Acousmonium: Christian Fennesz (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. Christian Fennesz (AT) uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. His lush and luminant compositions are anything but sterile computer ...
Keynote Erkki Huhtamo: The Diorama Revisited (part 1) (Sonic Acts XII, 2008)
Sonic Acts is a biannual festival at the intersection of arts, science, music & technology. The word ‘diorama’ is widely used in contemporary culture, but its origins remain obscure. Erkki Huhtamo’s lecture provides an archaeology of the fascinating history of the diorama, its cultural backgr...
Raviv Ganchrow – Long Wave Synthesis
Long Wave Synthesis is a land-art scale sound installation that investigates infrasound, and probes the relations between how we perceive the landscape and long-wave vibrations. The piece creates a complex topography of acoustic waves in a range of 4 to 30 Hz (mostly in the infrasound range, below the threshold of human hearing) spreading out from an array of custom-built, very low frequency generators. Commissioned for Dark Ecology Journey 2014
Jana Winderen – Pasvikdalen
Drifting away from a state of stability, blurring acceleration, moving out of sight, but not out of mind. Invisible but audible, the consequences reveal themselves through the silence of species we have never heard. Jana Winderen’s new work Pasvikdalen is based on recordings made both above and under water close to the border between Norway and Russia.
Save the Date: Sonic Acts Academy
From 26 to 28 February 2016, Sonic Acts hosts a new research-oriented programme at the intersection of art, music and science at several locations in Amsterdam. Over the course of three days, Sonic Acts Academy will invite artists, theorists, and scientists to expand on their research through lectures, concerts, film programmes, work presentations, masterclasses and workshops.
Dark Ecology Critical Writing Academy
On 9 and 10 October 2015, Dark Ecology and Fridaymilk will organise a two-day Critical Writing Academy, in Murmansk, Russia. This workshop is aimed at emerging and mid-career writers, critics, bloggers, theorists and journalists in arts and culture from the Barents Region
LYSN: Murmansk Spaceport – ЛИСН: Мурманский Космодром
Hilary Jeffery’s Murmansk Spaceport is an environment designed for exploring unknown territories. During November 2015 musicians from Murmansk (RU) and Bodø (NO) in the Barents Region work together with Hilary Jeffery in a new formation of LYSN to perform Murmansk Spaceport.
Dark Ecology Journey: First Journey Report
We are back home from a successful second Dark Ecology Journey. Over the course of five days, we travelled with a group of more than 50 artists, researchers, curators, writers and organisers to Kirkenes in Northern Norway from where we took a bus to Murmansk in Russia, to Zapolyarny and Nikel, and back to Kirkenes.
Sonic Acts Academy 2016: Impressions
From 26 - 28 February the first edition of Sonic Acts Academy took place in Amsterdam. For this three-day event artists, theorists, and scientists were invited to expand on their research through lectures, concerts, film programmes, work presentations, masterclasses and workshops. The Academy relate...
#Additivism: An Encounter with The Fluid Outside
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY #Additivism: An Encounter with The Fluid Outside 28 February 2016 - De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- A talk and Q&A session by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke about The 3D Additivist Manifesto + The 3D Additivist Cookbook and the artist’s own research and pr...
About
From 26 to 28 February 2016, Sonic Acts hosts a new programme at the intersection of art, music and science at several locations in Amsterdam. Over the course of three days, Sonic Acts Academy will invite artists, theorists, and scientists to expand on their research through lectures, concerts, film programmes, work presentations, masterclasses and workshops.
Louis Henderson: “Animism is the only sensible version of materialism”
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY Louis Henderson: “Animism is the only sensible version of materialism” 27 February 2016 - De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- For some time I have been working towards an archaeological cinema that investigates political problems inherent within institutional archi...
Re-Imagine Europe
Re-Imagine Europe is a four-year project presented by ten cultural organisations from across Europe, with an aim to respond to the social and political challenges that we are currently facing. Funded by Creative Europe, the project involves artistic residencies, commissions, workshops and symposia, using art to empower a young generation of digitally connected Europeans to explore new ideas. re-imagine-europe.eu
Michael Doser: Does the Universe Have a Dark Side?
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE DARK UNIVERSE Michael Doser: Does the Universe Have a Dark Side? 22 February 2013 – De Balie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- The universe we see with our eyes is only a small fraction of what is out there... and what we think should be there, doesn’t appear to be. The...
Femke Herregraven – Staring into the Ice
For her Dark Ecology commission, Staring into the Ice, Femke Herregraven examines the relations between the financial world and global warming, and how the melting Arctic ice now opens up new investment opportunities and trading routes for financial markets by making it possible to lay submarine cables on the Arctic seabed.
Alastair Reynolds: White Noise
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE DARK UNIVERSE Alastair Reynolds: White Noise 24 February 2013 – De Balie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- About Sonic Acts XV - The Dark Universe: The Dark Universe is the unknown universe, the universe that remains mysterious. The Dark Universe is also the weird univers...
Raviv Ganchrow: Listening Sites
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE DARK UNIVERSE Raviv Ganchrow: Listening Sites 22 February 2013 – De Balie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- In the panel Dark Signals the focus shifts towards the arts, and how they explore unknown behaviours of sound and electromagnetic signals. Raviv Ganchrow sheds ligh...
Trevor Paglen: The Last Pictures
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE DARK UNIVERSE Trevor Paglen: The Last Pictures 23 February 2013 – De Balie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Trevor Paglen will discuss his own work, including his project The Last Pictures, a collection of 100 images etched onto a gold silicon disc orbiting the Earth and...
Andrew Pickering: Varieties of Cybernetics: Ontology, Critique, Politics
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE DARK UNIVERSE Andrew Pickering: Varieties of Cybernetics: Ontology, Critique, Politics 24 February 2013 – De Balie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- What is the allure of cybernetics, what draws people to it? We teach our children to think of the world as a predictable pl...
Dark Ecology 2015
The second Dark Ecology research Journey took place from 26–30 November 2015. Participants traveled from Kirkenes in Norway’s northern extremes, to the neighbouring town Nikel (just across the border in Russia), Zapolyarny and to the largest city in the far north: Murmansk (Russia). The program...
Interview Ele Carpenter
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Interview Ele Carpenter 28 February 2015 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Interview by Oleg Khardatsev and Zhanna Guzenko / Fridaymilk Fridaymilk (RU) is a well-known media platform in Murmansk, Russia, run by a team of 10 people who are eage...
Interview Raviv Ganchrow
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Interview Raviv Ganchrow 1 March 2015 - Australiehaven, port of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Interview by Oleg Khardatsev and Zhanna Guzenko / Fridaymilk Fridaymilk (RU) is a well-known media platform in Murmansk, Russia, run by a team of 10 people who...
Interview Jana Winderen
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Interview Jana Winderen 27 February 2015 - Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Interview by Oleg Khardatsev and Zhanna Guzenko / Fridaymilk Fridaymilk (RU) is a well-known media platform in Murmansk, Russia, run by a team of 10 people ...
Interview Graham Harman
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Graham Harman 26 February 2015–- Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Interview by Oleg Khardatsev and Zhanna Guzenko / Fridaymilk Fridaymilk (RU) is a well-known media platform in Murmansk, Russia, run by a team of 10 people who are eager to promo...
Espen Sommer Eide: Material Vision – Silent Reading
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Espen Sommer Eide: Material Vision – Silent Reading 27 February 2015 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Material Vision – Silent Reading is an artistic research project, which includes the creation of new musical instruments and a perfor...
Ele Carpenter: The Nuclear Anthropocene
SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL – THE GEOLOGIC IMAGINATION Ele Carpenter: The Nuclear Anthropocene 28 February 2015 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Ele Carpenter introduces her curatorial research into nuclear culture, drawing on artistic practices in Europe and Japan, and field trips to undergro...
Yoneda Lemma & Anna Mikkola
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY Yoneda Lemma & Anna Mikkola 27 February 2016 - Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Yoneda Lemma (aka You Need a Lemon, sometimes Yoni Dilemma) is a quasi-causal brainchild for abstract exploration, experimental research, and a platform for productions, plotted by Canadian-bor...
Ewa Justka
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY Ewa Justka 27 February 2016 - Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Ewa Justka is an electronic noise artist, self-taught instrument builder and electronics teacher, originally from Poland and now based in London. In her artistic work Ewa explores the concept of the materiality...
Anton Kats: Radio Sound System
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY Anton Kats: Radio Sound System 28 February 2016 - De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Artist and researcher Anton Kats’ history with radio is a long one, spanning from his early memories of growing up in Ukraine, to recent projects in Jamaica. Anton’s fascination w...
Ewa Justka: Odd DIY Spectacle
SONIC ACTS ACADEMY Ewa Justka: Odd DIY Spectacle 27 February 2016 - De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, the Netherlands --- Ewa Justka reflects on her current trajectory as a noise and performance artist in an academic research and learning environment. Her approach could best be described as research throu...
Dark Ecology Programme Update - Commissioned works
The third edition of the art, research and commissioning project Dark Ecology will take place between 8 and 12 June 2016 in the border zone between Norway and Russia, with events scheduled in the Pasvik Valley and Kirkenes (NO) as well as in the surroundings of Nikel (RU). A group of more than 50 artists, researchers, curators, writers and organisers, will travel from Northern Norway to North West Russia.
Justin Bennett – Vilgiskoddeoayvir: Wolf Lake on the Mountains
At 12 kilometres deep, the Kola Superdeep Borehole is one of the deepest man-made holes on Earth. The Borehole was a Soviet geology research project that started during the Cold War. Justin Bennett created a soundwalk for this abandoned site.
UNFOLD #3: Reinterpreting the digital
On 1 December, the third public event within the framework of UNFOLD continues with the research line mediation by reinterpretation. The evening will start with the workshop 'Sensory Augmentation and Obstruction', organised by Joost Rekveld and LIMA together with Sonic Acts.
'Sensing the Shipyard' at Damen Shiprepair
Sonic Acts is currently working together with several educational institutes in the Netherlands and abroad. As part of the upcoming Sonic Acts Academy 2018, we are collaborating with the ArtScience Interfaculty in The Hague on Sensing the Shipyard: A Sensorial Journey.
BJ Nilsen – ORE
ORE is an acousmatic work that reveals the artist’s research into the mining of iron ore and its impact on society and cultural relevance. The work was developed for the Acousmonium sound diffusion system during a residency at Ina GRM, Paris, and was presented at Paradiso, Amsterdam, as part of Sonic Acts Festival 2019.
Sign up for workshops, seminars and guided tours at Sonic Acts Festival 2019
Sonic Acts is pleased to announce a special educational programme for Sonic Acts Festival 2019, with workshops led by artists and theorists including Christina Kubisch and Arie Altena, as well as seminars and guided exhibition tours.
Hugo Esquinca – Deformation Studies on Dimension and Structure for Fifteen Point Three
Deformation Studies on Dimension and Structure for Fifteen Point Three is a mediation on the acoustic resonances of space. The work was developed during a residency at STEIM (organised by Sonic Acts) and presented at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam as part of Sonic Acts Festival 2019.
Filipa César and Jin Mustafa – Meteorisations: Reading Amílcar Cabral's Agro-Poetics of Liberation
Meteorisations: Reading Amílcar Cabral's Agro-Poetics of Liberation is a performative lecture by Filipa César with sound by Jin Mustafa and images from Sana na N’Hada and Flora Gomes, 1974, Cape Verde. The work was presented at De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, as part of Sonic Acts Festival 2019.
Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne – The Informals / Неформалы
The Informals / Неформалы is a part-autobiographical work and a universal statement on the notions of decentralisation, collectivism, and non-conformist ways of living in the digital age. The European premiere of The Informals / Неформалы was presented at Paradiso, Amsterdam, as part of Sonic Acts Festival 2019.
Hugo Esquinca and Yuk Hui – On 'A Psychedelic Becoming'
Hugo Esquinca’s live multichannel intervention On ‘A Psychedelic Becoming’ at Sonic Acts Academy 2020 confronts recursion and its openness to the necessity of contingency. The work follows that of his collaborator, philosopher Yuk Hui, who outlines these notions in his book Recursivity and Contingency (2019).
Murmansk Prospekt
Murmansk Prospekt is a collaboration between Sonic Acts and Fridaymilk exploring the ways that artistic and speculative research can reveal the hidden histories and lost identities of the city of Murmansk. The project aims to enable current and future generations of citizens to re-imagine and redefine the city and articulate their personal identity through digital arts. fridaymilk.com inversiafest.com
Free PDF download of the Academy 2020 Magazine
The impulse to listen, talk and learn with one another now hinges on the need to stay at home, and many of us have more time than ever to read. For that reason, we’re giving away a free digital edition of our latest publication, the Academy 2020 Magazine.
Sonic Acts Academy 2020
Academy 2020 took its cue from inspiring artistic research with a special emphasis on experimentation and innovation. Informed by the urgency of the climate crisis and approaches to new futures, the Academy was an open invitation to listen, talk and learn with one another, fuelled by over 50 of the most exciting contemporary artists and thinkers from around the globe. 2020.sonicacts.com
Philip Vermeulen – More Moiré²
Philip Vermeulen’s sensorially powerful audiovisual installation More Moiré² premieres at Sonic Acts Academy 2020. In a panoramic Ganzfeld environment, with no horizon or anchor, the immersive cinematic experience puts visitors’ senses to the test. The tension between the experience of bodyless digitality and material physicality is palpable in More Moiré², which resets the senses in stimulating the awareness of one’s own material existence.
MÆKUR's CONDITIONS : 1218-0719 now available as limited edition vinyl
Released as part of Sonic Acts Academy 2020 and now available for digital download and as limited-edition vinyl, CONDITIONS : 1218 – 0719 is the first release by MÆKUR, the collaborative project of Maiа Urstad, Eva Rowson and Anton Kats.
Watch the 2020 conference talks and performances
In light of the difficult circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are working on ways to move future activities online. In the meantime, videos of the Sonic Acts Academy 2020 conference and performances can be watched over the weeks and months ahead.
Sonic Acts Academy 2018
Sonic Acts Academy 2018 was a platform for investigation, speculation, and reflection, focusing on educational practices and the critical examination of knowledge production in the field of art. By expanding artistic experience into an academy of engagement and exchange, it offered both a playground and a radical syllabus at odds with institutionalised learning. sonicacts.com/2018
Sonic Acts Academy 2016
Sonic Acts Academy 2016 highlighted artistic engagement as vital to understanding the complexities of our contemporary world. Over the course of three days, artists presented work that challenged the sterile dichotomy of theory versus practice. Following an open and dynamic format, the Academy positioned art as a unique means of knowledge production. sonicacts.com/2016
Open Call: Underexposed – Mentorship Programme for Young Artists
Sonic Acts invites young artists to apply for Underexposed, an online mentorship and training programme. The programme is part of a Sonic Acts talent development initiative focussed on supporting artists at the beginning of their career.
Angeliki Diakrousi and Yara Said selected for Underexposed
Underexposed is an online mentorship and training programme – part of a Sonic Acts talent development initiative – that focuses on supporting artists at the beginning of their career. Motivated by the number of exciting projects from young local artists, shown by many of the applications to our recent OVEREXPOSED residency call, Underexposed includes a mentorship period in which artists work directly with members of the Sonic Acts curatorial team, providing an opportunity to get feedback on the development of artistic projects.
Experience the interactive audio walk Plastic Hypersea by Sissel Marie Tonn
Plastic Hypersea is an interactive, site-specific work by artist Sissel Marie Tonn that invites the listener to contemplate a more expanded sense of self. The work can be experienced at the NDSM Wharf in Amsterdam from the end of April.
Sissel Marie Tonn – Plastic Hypersea
Site-specific sound walk Plastic Hypersea by Sissel Marie Tonn invites the listener to explore and imagine the environment as an extension to their immune system and to contemplate the many ways in which their bodies are entangled with microplastics in the sediments of Amsterdam’s waterways.
Overexposed Podcast with Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee featuring Devin Hentz
In the third episode of the Overexposed Podcast – a collaboration between Sonic Acts and Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee – artist in residence Devin Hentz about data thieves, trash and its role in the archive of history, and the death of clothes.
Open Call: Sonic Acts continues its OVEREXPOSED home-based residency programme
Sonic Acts is proud to announce the continuation of the OVEREXPOSED residency programme. With this renewed open call, we invite applications from artists and researchers working across the fields of environmental humanities.
Artists in residence MELT look at different approaches to time
MELT (Loren Britton & Isabel Paehr) are arts-design researchers who work together on games, technology and critical pedagogy. During their 'residency time', MELT look at climate change and pollution in relation to different approaches to time.
OVEREXPOSED
OVEREXPOSED is a residency programme from Sonic Acts investigating pollution and its effects on everything living and non-living, through which we aim to create awareness about pollution both in local surroundings and on a planetary scale. It fosters artistic research whose outcomes are presented in a variety of formats, including text publications, visual journals, and performative or discursive presentations.
Tangle Eye: Worldbuilding with Mixtapes A Workshop by Arjuna Neuman
For a workshop taking place online on 31 May & Thursday 2 June from 18:00, Arjuna Neuman invites participants are invited to bring songs that build an argument, or even a new world, towards a collective mixtape that imagines the world as otherwise.