Turn it up! Bring the noise

RITUAL w/ Katía Truijen

At Rewire 2020/21 we explored the theme of (re)setting, asking how we can reorientate ourselves in a world that is constantly shifting in unexpected ways. In his book The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present, the philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han defines rituals as an important technique for us making a home for ourselves in this world, for us to reset and reorientate; “[Rituals] transform being-in-the-world into a being at home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable. They even make it accessible, like a house.”

Byung-Chul Han’s book emphasises the important role rituals play in building communities and networks, sharing values, and maintaining a sense of cohesion and integration in our societies. Yet he sees them in demise, and this ‘disappearance’ is at the same time cause and consequence of today’s narcissism and individualism (read: capitalism), which makes us feel disoriented and lost in society.

Rituals generate a community without communication, but now we have communication without community, he tells us. Rituals are tools to transmit, represent and embed the values of a community. So what happens when these fall absent? And how can we embrace them again or begin to create new ones?

At Rewire 2022, RITUAL invites you into an experimental series that explores the many different elements that form a ritual. While often described as spiritual and transcendent, they equally ground us into our daily lives and help us connect with our surroundings, each other, and ourselves. Through a sequence of contributions, the series explores sub themes such as Attention, Ceremony, Technology, Resonance, Belonging, Closure and Power, and serves as an entry into collectivity and cohesion, into new rituals.

Throughout the festival days, artist, writer and theorist Brandon LaBelle will host a series of gatherings at independent bookstore Page Not Found, with each session talking through an aspect of resonance. These “Resonance Seminars” will discuss how resonance operates in experiences of cooperation and communal effort, as well as its place within expressions of social recognition; on radical sympathy, restorative justice and more-than-human encounter; and finally on the physicality of resonance: how touch guides us into a range of contacts and practices. By gathering and reflecting together, the seminars aim to nurture a performative scene of resonant creation.

Sound artist FUJI|||||||||||TA shares his film Soramimi in response to the theme of Attention. “Soramimi means ‘mishearing’ in English. It means that you hear a sound that is not actually being made. My days are filled with soramimi. Searching, Searching, Searching, But it is rarely found.” It is a film by FUJI|||||||||||TA, recorded at his house and in his neighbourhood. Edited by Tatsunori Kasai, graphic design by Junpei Inoue, special thanks to Yusuke Nakano and commissioned by VIRTUALLYREALITY.

Artist M Lamar facilitates a reading group on We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by cultural theorist, bell hooks to think through rituals of dominance and power and how we can turn to the prolific writing of bell hooks as a starting point on a journey of healing and love. Debit will share an artist talk on the rituals, ceremonies and technologies of time that exist within her practice and have fed into her recent debut album The Long Count.

In addition, RITUAL shares a zine designed by Fallon Does, this includes contributions from M Lamar, Brandon LaBelle, artist Grouper, poet Momtaza Mehri and FUJI|||||||||||TA. This is freely available during all RITUAL programmed events and at Page Not Found.

Performances of interest for this theme include; Debit, “Echoic Choir”, Grouper, M Lamar and FUJI|||||||||||TA.

RITUAL is co-curated with Katía Truijen, a media researcher, writer, curator and musician based in Rotterdam.

Turn it up! Bring the noise!

Coby Sey is a Lewisham-based musician, producer and vocalist. His intimate, introspective music has been released on labels such as AD 93 and CURL, the collective he co-founded with Mica Levi and Brother May. His collaborative spirit has been demonstrated through projects with artists such as Tirzah, Klein, Babyfather, Kwes, and others. 2021 saw Coby Sey working as a co-writer on Tirzah’s landmark album, Colourgrade, as well as collaborating with the likes of Cosha, Leifur James, Kelly Lee Owens, Infinite Coles, Lafawndah and Galya Bisengalieva on a string of singles, remixes and reworks. In this conversation Coby Sey discussed his relation to noise, and his personal history with music as a necessary disruption.

We dive head first into our conversation and talk about recent experiences of noise—Coby Sey is included in a Sp*tify playlist titled “Noisy Voices”, sounds labelled as ‘radical and experimental’—before we realise we need to circle back to the beginning and first understand how we’ve each defined the term noise in our heads. For Coby, the definition of noise is linked to expectation and agency. “Noise is a disruption, but it can be a positive one. It helps us to break away, which is often what we need to do. It’s often not premeditated”, he adds, before immediately asking himself if adding distortion to a track would be noise? “Perhaps it’s defined by the recipients, the listeners”—he ponders aloud. “Or maybe it’s the person making the noise.” I interject and ask about non-human noises and sounds, and then we have a long pause where it becomes clear that noise is a difficult one to put into words, but we seem to be circling around a shared feeling on what noise is.

We start again. How does noise tend to make us feel?“I feel a resonance with it,” Coby starts. He tells me about an article he read earlier that morning that suggested people who are feeling annoyed or upset often listen to heavy metal.