OPENING PROGRAMME

Inter/relations — opening programme

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday 6 April, 17:00—23:00

Opening Rewire 2023, the festival will kick-off with a freely accessible opening programme at The Grey Space in The Middle, with conversations and listening sessions introducing the festival’s theme Inter/ relations.

The Soundscape Speaks — Listening Session

By: Hildegard Westerkamp (audio contribution)

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday 6 April, 17:00—17:45

In The Soundscape Speaks, composer, radio artist, and sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp turns to her archive of sound recordings, inviting us to listen to the environment across time and space.

Westerkamp’s pioneering musical works and writing at the intersections of environmentalism, acoustic communication, radio arts, listening practices and soundwalking activate an awareness, that sound is a decisive dimension of the world — an idea that underpins contemporary thinking across social, political, artistic, and scientific practices of environmental respect and concern. “For The Soundscape Speaks, I have brought together many of my recordings and compositional approaches in a fluid stream of listening while also softly speaking my mind about issues of soundscape ecology. It is an invitation to open yourselves to the complexities of listening itself and the possibilities it may offer to recalibrating your own relationship to the environment.”

Inter/relations — Assembly

With: Heloisa Amaral, Mark Peter Wright, Carla J. Maier, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday 6 April, 18:00—18:45

This year, Rewire’s context programme Inter/relations will explore how recognizing fluid boundaries between humans, nature, and technology, and establishing connections between times and territories are fundamental for contemporary and experimental music and sound practices.

During this open assembly, with contributions by Heloisa Amaral, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Carla J. Maier, and Mark Peter Wright, we will introduce and discuss the various themes, listening practices and conversations that will unfold over the festival days. How to listen more closely and collectively, and how to tune in to our interrelated environments?

Sonus and Sonic Entanglements — VideoLecture-Performance and Conversation

By: meLê yamomo

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday 6 April, 19:00—20:00

During this video-lecture-performance and conversation, meLê yamomo will discuss his research on “sonus,” the sound that is archived in colonized bodies, and how to listen closely to the permeation of individual memory and translocal histories. meLê yamomo is a researcher, theatre director, and composer, currently living and working in Amsterdam and Berlin. His work focuses on time and place, sonic entanglements, and the materiality of sound. He is assistant professor of performance studies, sound studies, artistic research, and decoloniality at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. He is project leader of Sonic Entanglements and Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives, and author of Sounding Modernities: Theater and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific 1869— 1946 (2018). He is resident artist at Ballhaus

Naunynstraße, Berlin where his works Echoing Europe, sonus — the sound within us, and Forces of Overtones are on repertoire. He also curates the Decolonial Frequencies Festival.

Visceral Acts (of Environmental Listening) — Conversation

With: Matteo Marangoni, Vica Pacheco, Vivian Caccuri, and Naomi Rincón Gallardo

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday 6 April, 20:15—21:15

Prior to the opening of the exhibition Proximity Music: Visceral Acts on Friday April 7 in and around Amare, artist and curator Matteo Marangoni, and artists Vivian Caccuri, Vica Pacheco, and Naomi Rincón Gallardo will be demonstrating and discussing their approaches and instruments that invite us to recalibrate our relations to natural elements and complex ecological systems, while connecting with different forms of knowledge. From Vica Pacheco’s pre-Columbian whistling vessels to Vivian Caccuri and Thiago Lanis’s recreated sounds from the forest. And from Naomi Rincon Gallardo’s entangled stories of counter-worlds, to Matteo Marangoni and Dieter Vandoren’s swarm of artificial creatures that respond to the sun, the clouds, and the shadows of trees.

TIMEZONES: Staying Creative Between Beauty and Chaos in Rio de Janeiro, and Ears on/of Makiling by Norient — Listening Session

With: Hannes Liechti, Vivian Caccuri, meLê yamomo

The Grey Space in The Middle, Thursday April 6, 21:30—22:45

The TIMEZONES podcast series plunges into the world of artists and their practices, asking: what does living and working in culture and the arts involve in different countries, cities, and contexts today? Episode 5 of the podcast series by artist Vivian Caccuri, explores how Rio de Janeiro has shaped its music over the centuries and invented its future through the vision of artists, creators, and scholars. Behind the picture-postcard landscapes and the stereotypical images of carnival, beaches, and beautiful women lies an enigmatic and broken city. Rio’s musical and creative identity, such as samba and carnival, seems to be ever transforming and flirting with traditional forms, yet at the same time, those forms have a history of struggle, intimately connected to Afro-Brazilian musical and religious expressions. This listening session will be preceded by an introduction with artist Vivian Caccuri and Norient curator and editor Hannes Liechti. Episode 9 in the series by artists meLê yamomo and Nono Pardalis, explores the stories and sounds of Mount Makiling, located 80 km south of the Philippine capital of Manila. Makiling is the sacred site of local legends, the setting for numerous classical works of literature, and a pilgrimage destination for many mystics. It is also the home of many artists and arts students. This listening session will be introduced by meLê yamomo and Norient curator and editor Hannes Liechti.

TIMEZONES is a project by Norient, co-initiated with the Goethe-Institut.