Following a reading of Água Viva (1973) by Clarice Lispector, Brandon LaBelle was struck by the recurring figure of X that Lispector evokes – X is there as an enigmatic creature, a poetic vibration that marks what cannot be named, but which is deeply present: it is cellular, muscular, buried in the center of the self, and it is energetic, a “music without melody” as she calls it. LaBelle is interested to meditate upon this X, understanding it as an elemental force and an onto-poetic spirit that gives way to all types of creative manifestations which, for him, finds expression in the activity of drumming. LaBelle will follow drumming as a portal into the poetic dimension of X, one that refuses the logic of computation today, keeping us close to a living vitality. 

Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer, theorist, and artistic director of The Listening Biennial and Academy. His work focuses on questions of agency, community, pirate culture, and poetics, which results in a range of collaborative and extra-institutional initiatives, including Communities in Movement (2019–2023), Oficina de Autonomia (2017–ongoing), The Living School (with South London Gallery, 2014–2016), The Imaginary Republic (2014–2019), Dirty Ear Forum (2013–2022), Surface Tension (2003–2008), and Beyond Music Sound Festival (1998–2002). In 1995 he founded Errant Bodies Press, an independent publishing project supporting work in sound art and studies, performance and poetics, artistic research and contemporary political thought. His publications include: Poetics of Listening (2025), Dreamtime X (2022), Acoustic Justice (2021), The Other Citizen (2020), Sonic Agency (2018), Lexicon of the Mouth (2014), Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian (2012), Acoustic Territories (2010), and Background Noise (2006).