Jeff Diamanti is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at the UvA. Focusing on practices of listening, he works with communities, utilising public space to explore human dialogues with their environments.įélix Blume, Desierto.
Currently residing between Mexico, Brazil and France, Blume’s process of sound-making is often collaborative. Commissioned by ARTE Radio, his piece Desierto (2021, 24’) is filled with recordings from these elevated plains, showcasing that the desert is far from empty. Sound artist Félix Blume will take us on a listening journey to the altiplano Potosino in central Mexico, a major gold and silver mining hub.
From fine powder to razor-sharp shingle, it is a geological archive transporting crystals of deep time into the present. It drifts ephemerally across landscapes and is industrially manoeuvred across oceans and continents. Shifting, grinding, granulating… sand is matter in motion. In their grains we can read the history of the world’s second most consumed material after water, shaping everything from our homes to our computer chips. Shores, dunes and deserts are figures that will follow us throughout the evening. PROGRAMME Shifting Sands brings into focus the ecological impacts of sand excavation and consumption, which are marred by displacement and continuous colonial expansion. €6 Late entry (performance & Club from 22:30) TIMETABLEġ9:00 Félix Blume – Talk + Listening SessionĢ2:15 Interlude – Film by Maika Garnica & Ans Mertens VENUE OT301, Amsterdam House rules TICKETS
Finally, it wouldn’t be Night Air without a last blast from a lineup of unique DJs ready to shake the sand under our feet: Femi, TAAHLIAH, our very own Snufkin, and Europa. LÖSS, a sound performance by Farzané, simulates system dynamics of sand formations, which serve as a model for critical states and self-organisation. Enar de Dios Rodríguez’ film Vestiges, along with Pia Borg’s Silica, Maika Garnica and Ans Mertens’ Interlude, and 15” Sand Economy film loops by Yanjin Wu take us through the politics and poetics of sedimentary rock. Scholars Jeff Diamanti and Michaela Büsse trace flows of particulate matter – dust, emissions, pollen, sand – as they are situated and carried across geological time. Sound artist Félix Blume guides us on a listening journey to a major gold and silver mining hub in Mexico, emphasising that the desert, far from being hostile, is prolific with life. Our next gathering, Shifting Sands, brings together talks, films, sounds and performances to dig into the relationship between sand, the history of pollution and economy.
On Friday, 22 April from 18:30 to 3:00, Sonic Acts is back with a monthly Night Air series at OT301 in Amsterdam – the city built on sand. Visit Noam Youngrak Son's website to find out more about the workshop, discover the zine, and keep scrolling to produce unique combinations of text – ad infinitum. Scrimping eels in a puddle right there, the residue from my flesh can cling there if it wants to, that can be my legacy." "As a hydrophobic creature I am terrified of water. "Squiggle squiggle across the currents of my being I just want to merge with a giant teddy bear from a pool of unlimited intercourse."
Only tinkering movements, entangling my being to become." The following quotes are extracted from the workshop participants' collaborative writing process:
Photos are now available to browse online. The result of this workshop was the publication of a unique zine, centred around text generated by attendees – with the interference of an algorithm. On Saturday 26 March, interdisciplinary designer Noam Youngrak Son led participants online and in person at W139, Amsterdam, in a collaborative writing process as part of the first workshop in the Sonic Acts Practicum series: The Story-Telling Eel-Orgy – Writing as an Aquatic Intercourse.