november _22
it's been exactly 1 year since i started sending this monthly letter!
hello you,
this letter celebrates 1 year anniversary of my monthly letters! Really, feels like it was yesterday.. well, we all know time flies, especially when it’s full of experiences. Looks like a good time to move from mailchimp to another platform: hello to substack. For now, i will be testing this one and let’s see how it feels around here.
i will keep the structure of the letter: starting with this short “hello” part where to briefly update you on what’s new and most impactful for me at the moment. Then, something visual from rotterdam [or wherever i am at the moment]; a short list of curious things that i want to share with you; and finally, artwork spotlight - putting something i’ve made on your radar.
Remember to get back to me, too. I would love to hear from you, how are you doing and what are you recently up to.
love,
ål // ≧◉◡◉≦
[visual from.. bon iver]
one of the super-perks of being in the Netherlands, is that you get to catch amazing artists’ tours. Finally, first big live to see since the start of the pandemic - happy it was Bon Iver. And really, i was amazed by this concert, quite different from my previous experiences. Imagine only his voice and ±15,000 people being silent to listen. Shivers.
there we no lines at all: no queue to enter the venue, to get a drink, to go to the toilet. There were around 15,000 people, yes. Insane.
[things to share with you]
[collective infrastructures: how to understand collectivity] it's been a few months since I took part in the FIBER Natural Intelligence lab in Amsterdam. It was a blast: memorable conversations and many moments of awakening. Absolutely one of those experiences that have impact on the way you think, work and are.
During the lab i did several visual recordings, but decided to publish this one: Collective Infrastructures: How to Understand Collectivity is my take from Varia's workshop. Also, definitely read the whole Dossier with articles from the whole Lab here.
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[roof for sound first resident] since i started to coordinate the sound residency at Willem de Kooning Academy, i went through some struggles to get this project go in this academic year. But here we are: got our first resident who was so inspiring! Meet Agnes Leclaire, a Transformation Design exchange student from Switzerland, who joined the residency to explore contemporary/traditional sounds and to create experimental, mutating soundscapes as a process of healing, observation, and reflection. Finding her artistic expression through sound and words to convey personal stories, experiences, found traces and political atmosphere that shape and influence the Indonesian diaspora in the face of past colonial history and the associated challenges of assimilation and acculturation.
In her first week, she produced experimental sounds inspired by Indonesian mythologies and traditional ceremonial sound patterns, but also by stories of migration and its development.
In her second week, Agnes dealt with the challenging question of defining "self" and "identity", in a world that prefers binary identity. Those whose identity lives in this in-between space feel constantly pressure. How we can embrace the "liminial" as a permanent house, rather than being a transitional space? How can we allow multiethnic individuals not only more stability in their sense of self but also a platform for transformation?
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[infrastructural interactions: survival, resistance and radical care] is a new publication by The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest [TITiPI].
As public health care nearly collapsed under pandemic pressure, schools closed and movement through public life became increasingly monitored and managed by digital infrastructures, we have been thinking with other collectives about radical alternatives to the need for care.
TITiPI convenes communities to articulate, activate and re-imagine what computational technologies in the “public interest” might be when “public interest” is always in-the-making.
You can download it here, or read it on the wiki here.
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[artwork spotlight]
[deep listening sound jam documentation zine] is a new tiny work-in-progress publication that documents briefly our first sound jam that we co-facilitated with my friend, artist Mitsa Chaida [GR]. Have a look at what we did here: download .pdf version of the zine; an A4 to print at fold at home; and check out the full documentation.