17 Nov 2021

Speaker: Chris Salter

Alien Agencies – Capturing Resonance from the Insider Perspective

One of the key concepts in the notion of artistic research is the term research itself, which for all intents and purposes signifies the creation of new knowledge about some aspect of the world. Yet, research has some strong assumptions behind it – namely, that there is a distance to be established between the research object and the researcher themselves. This poses a rather complex problem for the artistic since the entire point of artistic practice is to intervene in the world, not to observe it at a critical distance. This gets even more complicated when it comes to the phenomena of sound – how to capture it as a research object at a distance when, in fact, with sound there is no distance and there is no object. This talk bases itself on a chapter from my 2015 MIT Press book Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making which focuses on the work of sound artists O+A (Bruce Odland and former Sound Studies Guest Professor, Sam Auinger). The book asks what happens in creative practice when the materials of art and research behave and perform in ways beyond a creators’ intentions. To make the problem stickier and more intriguing, how does an artist themself (in this case, the author Chris Salter) understand the practices of other artists at both a distance and close up in order to investigate how new sonic events can come into the world and how they shape both knowing and experiencing that world in a new way. 

Thu May 20
Guest: C‑drík aka Kirdec aka Cedrik Fermont

Born in Zaire (Congo, DR), Cedrik Fermont aka Kirdec has been involved since the late 1980s in the electronic and experimental music network, including audio works for video, theatre and choreography, essays and lectures. He plays in various projects such as Axiome, Ambre, Tasjiil Moujahed and in duo with Marie Takahashi to name a few and performed or recorded with dozens of artists throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. He runs Syrphe, a platform (label, radio show, concert promoter, etc.) mostly but not exclusively dedicated to electronic and experimental music from Asia and Africa. He wrote several essays such as “An introduction to electroacoustic, noise and experimental music in Asia and Africa” (Kibla/Folio, 2014–2015), “Power through networking: Reshaping the underground electronic and experimental music scenes in East and Southeast Asia” (New Geographies, 2015–2016), “Sound Art in East and Southeast Asia. Historical and Political Considerations” (with Dimitri della Faille, in The Bloomsburry Handbook Of Sound Art/Bloomsburry, 2020). And co-wrote with Dimitri della Faille the book “Not Your World Music: Noise In South East Asia”, winner of the 2017 Golden Nica — Prix Ars Electronica in the Digital Music & Sound Art category. 

syrphe.com