The Rewire 2022 discourse programme returns to ground the festival lineup into meaningful segments and lasting considerations on the many folds of contemporary music.
As Rewire returns to an in-person festival to The Hague, we have been thinking about the systems, routines and practices we had in place and how these have changed or been paused; the way our audience gathered and felt familiar, and how, for many, this feeling of closeness and community may now feel strange and take time to regain. We have also begun to think more about how the programming can be more collaborative and sustainable, and so this year we began to invite local guests as co-curators. These new ways of working have led us into three themes – NOISE, AFFECT and RITUAL – which bring together artists, performers and thinkers for a series of conversations, readings, listenings and screenings during this year’s festival.
NOISE is in collaboration with urban researcher Caroline Claus and Leiden’s Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy, Marcel Cobussen. Together at Rewire 2022, they invite us to return to the noise of noise. To question what does noise mean, how does it sound, what does it do? On Saturday at Rewire, Cobussen will share a keynote lecture on the necessity of revisiting ‘noise’ and of understanding it as an active terminology that interacts with the social, political, ecological, and even ethical aspects of sound. This is followed by a Forum For Noise with urban researcher Caroline Claus, Marcel Cobussen and artist performances from Caeso and Yau, brought together to seek a definition and communal experience of ‘noise’.
Chicago producer Jana Rush and Caroline Claus will join together in conversation on Sunday to explore themes of gender representation and architecture that are enveloped within footwork as a musical style and culture. Artists Lamin Fofana and JJJJJerome Ellis will share an artist talk within the installation space of Fofana’s Shafts of Sunlight to discuss disruptions and dysfluency as they relate to perceptions of noise, time, blackness and identity.
Keynote: Marcel Cobussen - Saturday 9 April
FORUM FOR NOISE - Saturday 9 April
In conversation with Jana Rush & Caroline Claus - Sunday 10 April
In conversation with Lamin Fofana & JJJJJerome Ellis - Sunday 10 April
Performances of interest for this theme include; JJJJJerome Ellis, Coby Sey, Lamin Fofana, Ziúr & James Ginzburg’s Myxomy and Jana Rush.
AFFECT is in collaboration with scholar and curator Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta. It explores how the notion of ‘affect’ helps us better understand how we can use our experience of sound and music. We’ve all had those moments of surprising connection & warmth on the dancefloor—and maybe also moments of shocking alienation—but why do they happen? What role does music and sound play in these encounters? We explore the engagement of sound beyond what we hear with our ears to consider the vibrations, emotions, and other exchanges that occur.
On the Thursday prelude to the festival, Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta will share an online keynote lecture on ‘Stranger Intimacy on the Dancefloor’, offering an introduction to affect theory and its relationship to sound and music. Artists Stine Janvin & Ula Sickle will follow with a discussion on connectivity, memory, touch and other senses that filter into their performance Echoic Choir, which they present during Rewire 2022. On Friday, ahead of the Tactology Lab performance, curators Dianne Verdonk & Roald van Dillewijn will present a show-and-tell talk with various self-made instruments to reflect on the tacticity of sound and reflect on their experimental work which finds new physical ways of interacting with technology for performing arts.
Talking About Music, a panel with Proximity Music curator Matteo Marangoni and artist Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, will offer a collective listening session to investigate the languages we use to talk about music and the consequences and effects this has on our experiences. Bianca Ludewig, a cultural anthropologist who researches artistic practices and working conditions at transmedia festivals, will share a talk titled ‘Affective Communities’. She will also join Nkisi on Sunday for a conversation on the educational and healing properties in vibrations, in connection with the sonic ancestral research that feeds into Nkisi’s new project with The Secret Institute titled Invisible Gestures - the first encounter of this project will be shared Saturday night at Paard.
Keynote: Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta - Thursday 7 April (Online)
In conversation with Stine Janvin & Ula Sickle - Thursday 7 April (Online)
Tactology Lab: Dianne Verdonk & Roald van Dillewijn - Friday 8 April
Panel: talking about music - Saturday 9 April
Talk: Bianca Ludewig - Saturday 9 April
In conversation with Bianca Ludewig & Nkisi - Sunday 10 April
Performances of interest to this theme include Lamin Fofana, Nkisi, Tactology Lab, Tirzah and Echoic Choir. In addition, the exhibition of Proximity Music: Sensing After Thought invites you to perceive and experience sound in new ways.
Curated in collaboration with media researcher and musician Katía Truijen, RITUAL functions as a multitude of compositions for cohesion and community. While often described as spiritual and transcendent, rituals equally ground us into our daily lives and help us connect with our surroundings, each other, and ourselves. Throughout the festival, artist, writer and theorist Brandon LaBelle will host a series of ‘Resonance Seminars’ at independent bookstore Page Not Found, to explore how resonance operates in experiences of cooperation and communal effort, as well as its place within expressions of social recognition. Japanese sound artist FUJI|||||||||||TA shares his film Soramimi which translates to ‘mishearing’ in English. Artist M Lamar facilitates a reading group on bell hooks to think through rituals of dominance and power and how we can turn to her prolific writing as a starting point on a journey of healing. Artist Debit will share a 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, which 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 will be launched on Friday 4pm at Page Not Found with a series of sonic meditations shared by composer and vocalist Kristin Norderval.
Brandon LaBelle: Resonance Seminars - Friday 8, Saturday 9 & Sunday 10 April
FUJI|||||||||||TA: Soramimi - Friday 8, Saturday 9 & Sunday 10 April
In conversation with Debit - Saturday 9 April
M Lamar reads bell hooks - Sunday 10 April
Panel: Reflection on Ritual - Sunday 10 April
Performances of interest for this theme include; Debit, Echoic Choir, Grouper, M Lamar, Meredith Monk and FUJI|||||||||||TA.