Events / Social Acoustics
2020-11-29 - 07:00 PM / Errant Sound, Berlin
With presentations by:
Brandon LaBelle, On the electroacoustic and human-technical assemblages
Julia Tieke, ORIENTING VOICE. Medina/Mississippi, Aleppo/Brackenheim, Cairo/Berlin"
The experiences of hearing and being heard contribute greatly to the work of recognition and mutuality, supporting the building of community as well as the struggles by which to resituate identity. Through a range of acoustic gestures and practices, from disruptive signals to vibrant ecologies of togetherness, hearing and being heard become scenes or processes of reorientation, affinity, escape, and solidarity. The issue of social acoustics is put forward as a research framework in order to map out the ways in which sound and listening lend to social, cultural, and political experiences and imaginaries. In addition, the topic of acoustic justice is raised, suggesting that the movement of sound through a given environment carries questions of social equality and the power of aurality. How might we think through understandings of agency from a sonic perspective? Are there particular listening practices that may impact onto scenes of injustice? What types of acoustic arrangements might we make in support of a diversity of voices and orientations?
The seminar brings together participating artists to reflect upon sounding and hearing, collaboration and listening, and how these operate within their own practices. This includes questions of musicality and (social) composition, radio practices and sonic archiving, voice and embodiment.
The final in a series of three seminars presented at Errant Sound. Previous seminars included presentations by Zorka Wollny and Achim Lengerer.
Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. He develops and presents artistic projects and performances within a range of international contexts, often working collaboratively and in public. Works include “The Other Citizen”, Club Transmediale, Berlin (2019), “The Autonomous Odyssey” (with Octavio Camargo), Kunsthall 3,14 Bergen (2018), “The Ungovernable”, Documenta 14, Athens (2017), “The Hobo Subject”, Gallery Forum, Zagreb (2016), and “The Living School”, South London Gallery (2016). He is the author of The Other Citizen (2020), Sonic Agency (2018), Lexicon of the Mouth (2014), Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian (2012), Acoustic Territories (2010; 2019), and Background Noise (2006; 2015). He lives in Berlin and is Professor in new media at the The Art Academy, University of Bergen.
Julia Tieke works with and around text and sound. She is affiliated with the radio arts department of Deutschlandfunk Kultur, where she has been in charge of the daily ultra-short experimental format „Wurfsendung“ since 2007. Julia received a degree in “Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Communication” from the University of Hildesheim in 2002 and currently attends a bachelor’s degree programme at the Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität, Berlin. Her recent projects include the co-curation of digging deep, crossing far in India, Germany and Pakistan (2015-2017); the 12-channel audio installation Achtung, Aufnahme! (2016–2017) at silent green, commissioned by HWK, Berlin; research on the First Cairo Congress of Arab Music in 1932, so far resulting in two radio features, an installation for the exhibition `32: The Rescore in Sharjah, UAE, and a Club Transmediale talk (2019/20); the on-site and online project Karachi Beach Radio (with Yaminay Chaudhri, ongoing), and the recent neighborhood podcast Reuterrundfunk.