AFFECT w Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta

DIS COU RSE

The Rewire 2022 discourse programme returns to ground the festival lineup into meaningful segments and lasting considerations on the many folds of contemporary music. Bringing together artists, performers and thinkers for a series of conversations, readings, listenings and screenings, this year’s discourse programme will circle around three themes—NOISE, AFFECT and RITUAL.

The discourse programme include keynotes by Marcel Cobussen and Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta; a series of “resonant seminars“ from Brandon LaBelle, conversations between Jana Rush and Caroline Claus, Bianca Ludewig and Nkisi, Stine Janvin & Ula Sickle and Tactology Lab curators Dianne Verdonk & Roald van Dillewijn. There will be artist talks by Meredith Monk, Slikback, Lamin Fofana with JJJJJerome Ellis, Nkisi and Debit. In addition, a reading group on bell hooks hosted by M Lamar; a film installation of soramimi by FUJI|||||||||||TA; a panel Talking About Music with iii; and a zine which includes contributions from Grouper and poet Momtaza Mehri.

AFFECT w/ Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta

In their introduction to The Affect Reader, Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg assert affect’s “immanent capacity for extending […] both into and out of the interstices of the inorganic and non-living, intracellular divulgences of sinew, tissue and gut economies and the vaporous evanescenses of the incorporeal (events, atmospheres, feeling-tones)”. In simpler terms, affect is a name we give to a network of forces that we experience as an encounter; they touch us, propel us into movement, towards thought and emotion.

There’s an overlap with sound studies when we look at the language we use for affect— it’s often described through sonic and tactile metaphors of vibrations and resonance that relay an image of a collective experience; a crowd of people being washed over by a wave of calming music, feeling it through their skin and bones. We’ve all had those moments of surprising connection & warmth on the dancefloor— and maybe also moments of shocking alienation—but why do they happen? What role does music and sound play in these encounters? With this theme we explore how the notion of “affect” helps us better understand how we can use our experience of sound and music. We explore the engagement of sound beyond what we hear with our ears to consider the vibrations, emotions, and other exchanges that occur. At Rewire 2022, there’s a close but subterranean intimacy between touch and hearing, one that many artists make use of in their practice and performance. These musical-emotional-sensory resonances already show up in the way that we talk and write about music and sound. What metaphors do we use? What improvised vocabulary?