Son[i]a #346
Jessica Ekomane
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Jessica Ekomane is a sound artist and composer, and a lecturer in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Ekomane’s quadraphonic performances and installations approach algorithmic/computer music as a social practice that is grounded in questions such as the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics, and explores listening expectations and their societal roots.
Her pieces unfold as static situations in which change happens not in sequences, but in the slowly shifting relationship between the elements and events in each composition. This allows her to play with space and with the perception of rhythmic structures, noise, and melody in a kind of psychoacoustic experiment that carries with it the possibility of catharsis and emancipation.
In this podcast, Jessica Ekomane talks about the freedom of play, eMule, pipe organs, the limitations and flexibility of Max/MSP, early non-Western sound synthesis, DIY research, quotas, minimalism, and her early love for Ligeti and Destiny’s Child.
Musical references
– “Solid of Revolution” (live rearrangement), 2019
– “Never Odd or Even”, 2019
– “Citizen Band”, 2019
– “Music Enriched by Traditions from the Depth of Time”, 2021
– “Message to the youth”, 2019
– “Vesper” (demo), 2022
– “Obsolescence” (with Rully Shabara), 2021
– “Solid of Revolution”, 2019
– “Comedown”, 2020
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of our conversation with poet, activist, sound artist, sound sculptor and curator Antye Greie. We unpack some of her strategies to deploy what she calls "feminist sonic technologies". And we do so, starting with her own understanding of unlearning.
Edwin van der Heide
Artist, composer and researcher Edwin van der Heide expands musical composition and musical language in spatial, interactive, and interdisciplinary directions. His often site-specific, highly immersive installations don’t just take up space: they are a very deliberate inquiry into space itself and into its affordances as an artistic medium and material. Edwin’s pieces create space, modifying its actual and perceived boundaries. They make space present, apparent, and even tangible. In this podcast, we talk to Edwin about art in public space, air pressure, sounds under water, loudspeakers, networks, odd spatial experiences, and sonic phenomenology.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of our conversation with sound artist and musician Jessica Ekomane. We talk about sci-fi and emancipatory spaces, her VR project, her approach to live shows and her collaborations.
EVOL
Roc Jiménez de Cisneros talks about EVOL’s very free deconstruction and reinterpretation of György Ligeti's 'Continuum' and Hanne Darboven’s 'Opus 17A', and how these works relate to the duo's current artistic practice. Unusual notions of time in relation to music, algorithmic reverse engineering, complexity through simplicity, anti-climax, ancient trance music, weird mental states and Dick Higgins’ Superboredom concept pop up in the conversation.
DeForrest Brown, Jr. | Speaker Music
DeForrest Brown’s work includes music released under the moniker Speaker Music, but largely revolves around research and writing. He looks back at the complex roots of black American culture and at phenomena like techno, in order to expose this systematic obliteration. And above all, to draw attention to the neglected creativity of its pioneers and the rich sonic universe they created from the rubble of a crumbling Detroit. Against the tide of the prevailing narrative, Brown’s work seeks to contextualize these episodes by highlighting key economic and political factors of the time, intertwined with personal anecdotes and a sincere love for the music. We talk to Deforrest Brown about Detroit veterans, broken futures, Reaganomics, screams, government sanctioned murder, and Disco Demolition in the post-truth era.
Quinsy Gario
Quinsy Gario talks about the role of the activism in the Netherlands today, and about the relation between its performative nature and the boundaries of the museum.
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Interview with Natascha Sadr Haghighian about the '# 04 Natascha Sadr Haghighian. De paso' exhibition.
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Interview with Natascha Sadr Haghighian about artistic research, the relationship between art and politics and artistic practices as a driving force for emancipation.