FILM PROGRAMME

Apparently it can help to process emotions if we listen to music that matches our mood. “For me,” Coby says, “some noise feels cleansing.” This isn’t to say that Coby is annoyed or upset, though. For the entire conversation he sits back in his chair and looks off to a corner in the room, deep in audible thought, only to occasionally focus back on me and laugh at himself for going off on a tangent. “Noise,” he continues, “can be meditative in itself.” It’s the same way with lower frequencies; sub bass, dub music. “These go through our bodies and into the core—undiluted, concentrated noise.” So what are we left with to define noise by?

“Jazz used to be considered ‘noise’ by the so-called ‘mainstream’, he tells me. Jazz musicians were ‘formally’ trained but searching for a style of music not restrained by the parameters they studied. Nina Simone, a classically trained pianist, was dubbed as a ‘jazz musician’, which at the time carried certain labels reminiscent of connotations that used to be heavily associated with hip-hop before the 2000s; it was the stripclub music of its time and she famously felt some type of way about it. It undermined her musicianship compared to her counterparts who were white. Same with Miles Davis—another musician who went through traditional, institutional training. He didn’t like to be called ‘jazz’. He said jazz was another way for critics to discriminate to call him the n-word. He described the music by his peers and him as ‘social music’ and an attitude rather than a definable sound.”

“Of course,” he adds, “jazz is heard differently now, it’s not considered ‘noise’. It’s understood more, it’s accepted—mostly. It’s the same with hip-hop, rock & roll, funk, reggae, house etc. Eventually they get popular or accepted; sometimes through artists, personalities and labels who either crossover without compromise; sometimes through artists, personalities and labels who are considered ‘palatable’ to the mainstream.”

In 2003, the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone hosted Rise Festival at the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena) with Public Enemy as one of the headliners. As a young teenager, Coby says he was blown away by their live performance. The North-American hip-hop group formed by Chuck D and Flavor Flav in the 80s attracted attention for their unabashed and radical politically charged lyrics and criticism of the media and racism faced by African-Americans. Coby hears them in a lot of music at the moment, not related or restricted by genre, but this energy that struck him as a teenager standing in the audience listening to Public Enemy, he feels it again. It’s not just the politics, the lyrics or the message they shared; It’s a feeling that’s interwoven into their songs: this urgent feeling. An unshakeable sense of fearlessness.

Public Enemy upset the status quo within hip-hop. Not only did their messages confront the listener with their black nationalist politics, their music was also often sonically unpleasant. Their samplefilled, sonic signature was created by their production team, the Bomb Squad, and often referred to as “organised noise”. They created technically impressive, dense, multi-layered productions full of abrasive samples from far reaching genres like pop, rock and heavy metal—a technique more common today, but at the time it was a sound that defied categorisation and left them as outliers of hip-hop.

This raw expression, “without any diluting or compromise for acceptance or palatability” is essential for Coby. It stops us in our tracks, it diverts us and it teaches us something new. Music, in its rawest form, is often labelled as “noise” or “noisey” by the mainstream because it’s either not understood or it doesn’t align with what is considered to be “acceptable” or following familiarised rules. “I don’t know the origin of the word noise,” Coby says. “Sometimes I think the word noise has been

adopted as a reactionary label on those who have been marginalised or seen as peripheral based on identity and/or taste. I think over time, the word noise has come to mean other things. You know how derogatory words towards marginalised groups and subcultures get reclaimed as a way to find self-acceptance? I feel it’s not too different from the word ‘noise’ – I think it’s now positive and negative at the same time. It’s morphed.”

And it’s not just because of certain styles of music being accepted, Coby explains that more people embrace literal dissonant sounds and are finding ways that it can be used as a voice and as a source for sonic high.“I can think of a few... i. e. Sun Ra Arkestra, Sonic Youth, Mica, Boredoms, mbv, Jah Shaka, Nivhek, Alpha Maid, Penderecki, This Heat, Public Enemy.”

FILM PRO GRA MME

Expand your festival experience with our film programme, exploring key themes and artists through a cinematic lens. This year’s programme, screened at Filmhuis Den Haag, includes two film works by Meredith Monk, a documentary on the inquisitive artistic practice of Matthew Herbert, 35mm film experiences by Daïchi Saïto and Peter Tscherkassky and more.

A Symphony of Noise — Matthew Herbert’s Revolution Enrique Sánchez Lansch

A Symphony of Noise takes the viewer on a journey with Matthew Herbert, the revolutionary British musician and composer. Step into the mind of the artist known for his political pieces, combining music derived from real life sounds with politically sensitive issues. Herbert’s premise is that music has undergone a revolution. Instead of making music with instruments, we can now use anything that makes a sound. The film captures creativity at its core. After watching A Symphony of Noise we will listen to music, but also to the world, in a way we have never done before. Enrique Sánchez Lansch, 2021, Germany, 101 min Ellis Island An intensely memorable film evocation of America’s immigrants; set in the crumbling halls of contemporary Ellis Island. Blackand-white, near-static shots of actors and actresses realistically portraying turn-ofthe-century immigrants are combined with color shots of a modern-day tour guide conducting a tour of the buildings. Elements of modern dance are also incorporated, as contemporary dance groups often interact with the immigrant re-creations. Ethereal music and chanting accompany the piece, adding to its reflective tone. Meredith Monk, 1981, USA, 28 min

Book of Days Book of Days is a film about time, originally drawing parallels between the Middle Ages, a time of war, plague and fear of the

Apocalypse, with modern times of racial and religious conflict, the AIDS epidemic, and fear of nuclear annihilation. In light of the current pandemic of 2020, the cyclical nature of such phenomenons has made itself known once more. While the film provides no answers, it nevertheless is a poetic incantation of that which connects us. Meredith Monk, 1989, USA, 74 min

earthearthearth + Train Again Daïchi Saïto / Peter Tscherkassky

An exploration of contemporary experimental cinema featuring accelerating soundtracks by Jason Sharp and Dirk Schaefer, both screened on 35mm format.

earthearthearth The expansive mountainscapes of the Andes are the basis for this new, 35mm film by Daïchi Saïto. Once again propelled by the free, pulsating improvisation of saxophonist Jason Sharp, in which his heartbeat and breathing play a prominent role, the series of images slowly becomes more abstract. The end result is a hypnotic, sensory meditation on “our” earth. Daïchi Saïto, 2021, Canada, Japan, 30 min Train Again Train Again is a phantom ride through the engine room of the seventh art, a ceremony of the (violent) mechanics of railway vehicles and image transporters. Tscherkassky flits through the history of the filmic avant-garde, conceiving his work as a centrifuge of quotations from the pantheon of visionary cinema. One could call this highly complex and simultaneously elemental film a darkroom action experiment, an underground blockbuster, or a kinetic painting in a thousand shades of gray. In any case, Train Again is an ecstatic ode to the fragility and explosive force of the cinematic medium. Peter Tscherkassky, 2021, Austria, 20 min

Expedition Content Erik Carel, Veronika Kusumaryati

In 1961, filmmaker Robert Gardner organized the Harvard Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea (today West

Papua). Funded by the Dutch colonial government and private donations, and consisting of several wealthy Americans wielding 16mm film cameras, still photographic cameras, reel-to-reel tape recorders, and a microphone, the expedition settled for five months in the Baliem Valley, among the Hubula people. Expedition Content is an augmented sound work composed from 37 hours of tape by sound artist Erik Carel, which document the strange encounter between the expedition and the Hubula people. The piece reflects on intertwined and complex historical moments in the development of approaches to multimodal anthropology, in the lives of the Hubula and of Michael, and in the ongoing history of colonialism in West Papua. Erik Carel, Veronika Kusumaryati, USA, 78 min

Quarry Meredith Monk, Amram Nowak

Between 1975-’76, composer, singer, director/choreographer Meredith Monk and her company, The House, created Quarry as a mosaic of images, movement, dialogue, film, sound, light and music. A meditation on WWII and recurring cycles of intolerance, fascism, and cruelty in history, Quarry centers on a sick American child (played by Monk) whose world darkens as her illness progresses. Meredith Monk, Amram Nowak, USA, 82 min

Shorts: Aura Satz

A focus programme on Aura Satz, visual artist and filmmaker from Spain, featuring a selection of her recent work, including The Grief Interval and short films on Beatriz Ferreyra and Laurie Spiegel.

The Grief Interval In this audiovisual broadcast, artist Aura Satz collaborates with electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi to sonically haunt a decommissioned coal fired power station. Weaving eerie aural warning and mourning, the film project summons the possibility of the pause in a landscape of looming ecological emergency. Aura Satz, 2021, UK, 20 min