Event
Lawrence Lek, 'Black Cloud', 2021, video still. Courtesy of the artist.

Voicing Abstraction: A Talk by Infrasonica

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When
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November
2023
17:00 - 18:00
Book Tickets

Join us online for a talk by Infrasonica, a digital platform of non-Western cultures. They record, analyse and debate the eeriness of sound and its auras, linked to the world with the audible, the hidden and the sensitive.

The platform includes archives of experimental sound and visual artists, as well as theoretical musings on contemporary critical thought. By relying on a borderless network of collaborators, Infrasonica blends essays, conversations and speculative works that encourage critical curatorial and research projects.

Infrasonica has been exploring voicing practices that distance themselves from the politics of representation. They articulate spaces where indigenous silences, the poetic nature of sound, and the ritualistic dimension of language create room for a unique self—one not mediated by the state or the taxonomy of liberal politics, which often operate within the framework of identity and citizenship. These political structures tend to view voicing as representation, forming the foundation of representative democracy.

Voicing Abstraction, courtesy of the artists.
 Courtesy of Nadoe and of Mutter, Amsterdam.
Infrasonica logo, courtesy of the artists.
Infrasonica logo, courtesy of the artists.
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Caption

In this online talk hosted by esea contemporary, Infrasonica will discuss their understanding of the limits between voice, song, language, and abstraction while examining how voice as representation has been distorted in liberal democracies to flatten cultural differences and polyphonies, with aid from the work of authors and artists including Lawrence Lek 陆明龙, Yu'an Huang, InnerSwell, Nadoe, and Rouzbeh Shadpey.

By engaging with the idea of 'Voicing Abstraction', Infrasonica challenges the inherent contradiction in combining these two words. Learning from the legacy of indigenous art, abstraction is much more than the refusal of representation, as opposed to Western modernity; it's the articulation of meaning at the service of a specific community, used as a strategy to safeguard non-colonial memory. Abstraction, in this case, is not unintelligible but enigmatically literal. 

'Voicing Abstraction' aims to confront and explore the potentialities inherent in the poetics of spoken language: is it possible to name a shapeless thing? How can we address something beyond communication? Can we breathe life into that which has no concreteness?

If you have any special access needs, please let us know in advance.

Tracklist 

KUA: Transnationalisms by Yu'an Huang 

Black Cloud by Lawrence Lek 陆明龙 

pLayPlAyplAY by InnerSwell 

Come Hell or High Water by Nadoe 

Toward the Shore of Listening: An Underscore by Rouzbeh Shadpey 

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