How to Do Things with Sound

Myth and mantra, keyword and magic spell: The March issue of the On Music series called How to Do Things with Sound explores what the concept of sonic fiction can achieve.

Sonic fictions are everywhere: in conversations about vernacular culture, in music videos, sound art compositions, on record sleeves and in every single piece of writing about sound. Taking Holger Schulze’s book, Sonic Fiction, as a starting point, this evening on How to Do Things with Sound, invites the listeners on a journey into some of the most surprising sonic fictions of the last four decades.

In 1998 music critic, DJ and video essayist Kodwo Eshun proposed the concept in his book More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction, that inspired researchers, artists and scholars since then. Originally, he did so in order to explicate the connections between Afrofuturism and Techno, connecting them to Jazz, Breakbeat and Electronica. Since then sonic fiction became a myth and a mantra, a keyword and a magical spell.

Artist and scholar Ayesha Hameed discusses with Schulze the activism and heuristics inherent to sonic fictions, with a special focus on her artistic practice and his thought figures. Curator and scholar Giada Dalla Bontà brings to the table the sonic fictions within underground sound art of the late Soviet Union. Marcela Lucatelli, composer and performer, presents sonic fictions as part of a new performance and composition.

With Giada Dalla Bontà, Ayesha Hameed, Marcela Lucatelli and Holger Schulze, moderated by Pedro Oliveira