With each edition of Rewire, we strive to locate music’s place within wider social and cultural conversations. This year, we anchor our exploration around three key themes: Sense of Self, Network Music and Electronic Music Innovation In Historical Context.
With Sense of Self, we trace the acceleration in our understanding of selfhood, identity and representation. We dwell on the possibility of a shared consciousness against the established idea of individuality and the individual self; using art and music as the platform on which we produce, expand, and exchange these ideas.
Our sense of self adapts as we are faced with progressive discourses, advancing technologies, digital contexts, continuous interactions, new media representations and constantly challenged understandings. At Rewire 2018, we’re interested in the role that music plays in this. How today’s artists use their work to raise consciousness, negotiate new perspectives, challenge mainstream assumptions, reflect and depart from given contexts. We move between avatars and online personas, consider the ways we construct ourselves, question the political potential of art and our agency to constitute and subjectivate ourselves as well as the possibilities, and limits, of artistic practice for consciousness-raising.
Explore the complete Sense of Self programme below.
The Rewire 2018 discourse programme is free. Festival and Day passes for the rest of the programmeare available atTickets.
Saturday, 7 April – Korzo
E. Jane is a prolific artist, performing as one-half of SCRAAATCH, exhibiting solo work and masterminding popstar alter ego MHYSA. Through the identity of MHYSA, E. Jane began a process of relearning to express and perform femininity. Within the framework of Sense of Self, E. Jane discussion their various projects to reflect on self-representation, performance and having the agency to reclaim identities.
Saturday, 7 April – Korzo
Glitch Feminism embraces the causality of ‘error’, acknowledging that an error in a social system that continues to enact violence on all bodies may not be ‘error’ at all, but rather a much-needed erratum. In this video instalment, writer, artist and cultural producer Legacy Russell introduces us to her concept of Glitch Feminism where, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a body.”
Saturday, 7 April – Korzo
Traversing social, computational and neural architectures, Marija Bozinovska Jones considers the construction of identity within amplified technocapitalism and diverse forms of auto-regulation, such as trends in self-improvement and decentralised technologies. At Rewire 2018, she gives a performative lecture entitled, On Selfhood, examining the self as a distributed, datafied identity.
Saturday, 7 April – Korzo
Throughout the history of recorded music, almost all significant sonic innovation has derived outside the social elite and cultural mainstream and often been associated with moments of profound social change. In his talk, Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at University of East London, examines music’s capacity to expand our imaginations and still open us up to new political possibilities.
Friday, 6 April – Paard I
Having shrouded herself in mystery (read: anonymity) for much of her career, the British-born electronic musician steps out of the shadows on Friday to unveil her new live show, an electrifying multimedia performance replete with vigorous choreography, stunning visuals, live vocals and brand new music.
Friday, 6 April – Paard I
Wielding a uniquely conceptual approach to electronic music that explores notions of identity and the self, Fatima Al Qadiri explores her Kuwaiti childhood through the theme of hell-fire in a mesmerizing new audiovisual performance composed of (un)released music and archive footage of burning oil fires during the First Gulf War.
Friday, 6 April – Paard II
MHYSA takes us on a journey through her hopes, dreams, and inspirations, pulling the various elements of her artistic practice – experimental club rhythms, diva worship and Afrofuturist potential – into her elaborate fantasii.
Saturday, 7 April – Korzo
Explores the historic roots of queer identity and South American spirituality using a vast range of artistic expression – from poetry, traditional Aymara theatre and futurist narratives to DJ-sets and electronic composition – Elysia Crampton transcends the earthly realm to present a new theatrical performance centred around a mass of red clouds she calls, Artificial Stupidity.
Saturday, 7 April – Paard II
One of modern music’s most elusive experimentalists, Visionist interrogates the self through his deeply personal portraits of anxiety, artistic value and self-worth set to the beat of his brutal sonic soundscapes. At Rewire 2018, he’s joined by Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Maia for a live a/v performance that’s at once original, disturbing and surreally beautiful.