Embassy of the North Sea (Frank Bloem and Harpo 't Hart) – Fieldwork Presentation 19 May 2023 – Ruigoord, Amsterdam During their fieldwork presentation for Maritime Frictions, Frank Bloem and Harpo 't Hart observed the port of Amsterdam from a chemical point of view, following their nose and ears to smell and listen to the stories of life in the harbour. Throughout their presentation, the pair interweaved narratives of extractivism and international trade told by biological and fossilised bulk goods with stories of the marine life living on the hulls of cargo ships. Founded in 2018, The Embassy of the North Sea departs from the idea that the North Sea belongs to and should own itself. It researches how nonhumans, from phytoplankton to ship wrecks to cod fish, can become full-fledged members of our society. The Embassy works towards 2030, when we (humans) hope to emotionally, juridically and politically relate ourselves to the sea in a fundamentally different way. Maritime Frictions was a collaborative event organised by Sonic Acts and FieldARTS’ in Ruigoord, west of Amsterdam. The programme included a listening walk with Lance Laoyan, talks by Fred Carter and Charmaine Chua, a performance lecture by Liquid Time (Jacob Bolton and Miriam Matthiessen), a screening of Michaela Büsse’s ‘Building with Nature’ (2022), a sound performance from Velma Spell, and DJ set by Nessim. Explore the more from the programme at https://sonicacts.com/agenda/maritime-frictions Maritime Frictions is a part of New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe co-funded by the European Union. CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Recording: Roman Ermolaev Video editing: Bin Koh Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan Sound logo: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros

Latent Amongst the Air by Mint Park 27 October 2022 – OT301, Amsterdam, The Netherlands In her opening presentation and performance for Night Air: Breathing with Clouds, sound and new media artist Mint Park expands on her fascination with drift, noise and dissipation, discusses the making of her Sonic Acts commission 'Turbulence Studies: Latent Amongst the Air', and considers the dynamic ways we might make our atmospheres visible. Born in Seoul, Mint Park is currently based in Amsterdam. Working at the intersection of music, technology, science and art, her audio-visual practice focuses on the experience of the inter-weaving physical environment and virtual spaces with immersive sound, light, and spatial apparatuses. Besides her own projects, she runs Unheard Records, a label focused on femme, minority, queer and under-represented experimental artists. Night Air: Breathing with Clouds invited us to inhale deeply, sensing the fluctuations and formation processes of the atmosphere around us. The programme featured a presentation and performance by Park, a live film score performance with Sébastien Robert, a cloud tasting with artist Hannah Mevis and a screening of Ho Tzu Nyen's film 'The Cloud of Unknowing'. The evening culminated at high altitude and low pressure, with DJ sets from Emiranda, Rapala700, Bugasmurf and DJ G2G. NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of Sonic Acts events that aim to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. More information about Breathing with Clouds can be found at: https://sonicacts.com/archive/night-air-breathing-with-clouds CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Design: Toni Brell https://tonibrell.de Video editing: Roman Ermolaev Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan http://faboem.nl

Maritime Imagination by Mikki Stelder SONIC ACTS BIENNIAL 2022 16 October 2022 – Likeminds, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Thinking of the future imaginary of water invites a journey back into its unsettled past. In 1609, Dutch East India Company lawyer and state ideologue Hugo de Groot crafted the notion of ‘mare liberum’, or the free sea, turning the ocean into a commodity ready to be exploited. Tracing the colonial undercurrent of our maritime imagination across time, interdisciplinary researcher and writer Mikki Stelder is interested in how the ocean’s very materiality actively resists notions of commodification perpetuated by today’s legal narratives. Sonic Acts Biennial 2022 took place at various locations in Amsterdam, interweaving an exhibition, sound performances and discourse programme, accompanied by artist presentations, workshops, excursions and more. As a part of the Biennial programme, the Leaving Traces symposium opened up a forum in which to become attentive to pollution’s invisible, yet harmful touch. Actively rethinking our relation to the climate and our planetary legacies, an array of artists, researchers, curators, and scholars spoke of the many faces of toxicity – from fossil fuels to plastic, from nuclear energy to chemical pollutants. The gathering staged real stories and events of exposure, thinking about ‘leaving traces’ not just as the material act of spreading toxicity, but as art’s potential to reach out and act as a disruptive force in the world. Find out more at https://sonicacts.com/archive/biennial2022 Curation & production: Sonic Acts Recording: Engage! TV https://engagetv.com Sound mastering: Monty Mouw http://flippendisks.com Design: Catalogtree https://catalogtree.net Sound logo: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros http://www.vivapunani.org/

‘Everywhere is a here, isn’t it?’ On Toxic Entanglements by Antonia Alampi SONIC ACTS BIENNIAL 2022 15 October 2022 – Likeminds, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ‘Human actors strive to interpret, define, or contain the toxic, but how are they also acted upon? Or [...] what happens when the dump is in us? What is the duality of contamination that emerges when we think of toxicity as an ongoing and morphing process?’ (Chloe Taft, ‘What is TOXIC?’, TOXIC: A Symposium on Exposure, Entanglement, and Endurance, 2016, New Haven) Practitioners from various disciplines have long been engaged in exposing experiences of toxicity. At the heart of many such endeavours is the necessity of finding ways to make visible the complex entanglements of toxicity: of seemingly distant geographies and places; of the different reasons and interests that lie behind the manufacturing of toxicity; of the ways found to bypass national and transnational legislations; of the forms of collaboration between state apparatuses and organised crime in facilitating corporate interests at the expense of people. This talk starts with the toxic events in Alampi’s hometown, in a little village in Calabria, and moves on to discuss platforms such as Toxic Commons and the exhibitions ‘Deadly Affairs’ at Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp and ‘The Long Term You Cannot Afford’ at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin. What may emerge are similarities, more than differences, and proximity, more than distance. Everything being closer, way closer than one may think. Sonic Acts Biennial 2022 took place at various locations in Amsterdam, interweaving an exhibition, sound performances and discourse programme, accompanied by artist presentations, workshops, excursions and more. As a part of the Biennial programme, the Leaving Traces symposium opened up a forum in which to become attentive to pollution’s invisible, yet harmful touch. Actively rethinking our relation to the climate and our planetary legacies, an array of artists, researchers, curators, and scholars spoke of the many faces of toxicity – from fossil fuels to plastic, from nuclear energy to chemical pollutants. The gathering staged real stories and events of exposure, thinking about ‘leaving traces’ not just as the material act of spreading toxicity, but as art’s potential to reach out and act as a disruptive force in the world. Find out more at https://sonicacts.com/archive/biennial2022 Curation & production: Sonic Acts Recording: Engage! TV https://engagetv.com Sound mastering: Monty Mouw http://flippendisks.com Design: Catalogtree https://catalogtree.net Sound logo: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros http://www.vivapunani.org/

Filtered Clouds_do not store in container by Hannah Mevis 27 May 2022 – OT301, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Although a vast body of water is present in the air at all times, clouds are only perceptible by a careful combination of distance, moisture density, and light. Mist and fog, despite causing low visibility, are a way for earth-bound critters to experience clouds. As they hang low and cling to surfaces, we breathe them in and absorb them through porous bodies. Drawing attention to these intimate encounters, Hannah Mevis’ artwork inspired by morning dew, 'Filtered Clouds_do not store in container', encouraged us to taste clouds. Harvested locally, the clouds were meant to be sent travelling through our digestive systems and beyond. Curiosity towards the body and more-than-human lifeforms lies at the heart of Hannah Mevis’ artistic practice. Taking multiple, ever-changing shapes, she invites her audiences into participatory encounters such as wearing sculptures, floating a space, joining in on a political action or consuming culinary dishes while engaging with stories of food history. Currently, Hannah is focusing on states of exhaustion, alongside capturing a cumulus cloud. Night Air: Breathing with Clouds invited us to inhale deeply, sensing the fluctuations and formation processes of the atmosphere around us. The programme featured a presentation and performance by Park, a live film score performance with Sébastien Robert, a cloud tasting with artist Hannah Mevis and a screening of Ho Tzu Nyen's film 'The Cloud of Unknowing'. The evening culminated at high altitude and low pressure, with DJ sets from Emiranda, Rapala700, Bugasmurf and DJ G2G. NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of Sonic Acts events that aim to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. More information about Breathing with Clouds and its participants can be found at https://sonicacts.com/archive/night-air-breathing-with-clouds CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Design: Toni Brell https://tonibrell.de Video editing: Roman Ermolaev Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan https://faboem.nl

NIGHT AIR: SHIFTING SANDS Félix Blume – Desierto 22 April 2022 – OT301, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Félix Blume’s talk and ‘Desierto’ (2021, 24’) listening session transported the audience to Altiplano Potosino in central Mexico, a major gold and silver mining hub. Commissioned by ARTE Radio, the piece is filled with recordings from these elevated plains, emphasising that the desert, far from being hostile, is prolific with life. In the audiovisual work and installations of sound artist and engineer Félix Blume, listening emerges as a core tool, a means to encourage the awareness of the imperceptible, and as an act of encounter with others. Blume’s artistic practice is often collaborative, working with communities and using public space as a context within which to explore and present work. Intrigued by myths and their contemporary reinterpretations, he hones in on human dialogues with both inhabited natural and urban environments, tuning into what voices can say beyond words. Blume's pieces have been broadcasted by radio stations around the world. A recipient of the Paysage Sonore Prize for the video piece ‘Curupira, Creature of the Wood’ (2018), Blume was also presented with the Pierre Schaeffer prize for ‘Los Gritos de México’ (2015) at the Phonurgia Nova Awards. He has participated in festivals and exhibitions including LOOP Barcelona, Ex Teresa, Arts Santa Monica, CTM, Thailand Biennale, IFFR, etc. Blume resides between France, Mexico, and Brazil. Digging into the relationship between sand, the history of pollution, and economy, Shifting Sands featured an audiovisual work by Félix Blume, talks from scholars Jeff Diamanti and Michaela Büsse, as well as films from Enar de Dios Rodríguez, Maika Garnica, Ans Mertens and Yanjin Wu. In the latter part of the evening, artist Farzané delivered a performance of ‘LÖSS’, before DJs Femi, TAAHLIAH, Snufkin, and Europa took over for the night. More information about Shifting Sands and its participants can be found at sonicacts.com/discover/night-air-shifting-sands NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of Sonic Acts events that aim to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Design: Toni Brell https://tonibrell.de Video editing: Marie Debarbieux https://mariedebarbieux.wixsite.com Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan http://faboem.nl

Out of Focus: Down the Crimson Cliffs, past the Fjord of the Dead, over the Signal Mountain by Louis Braddock Clarke & Zuzanna Zgierska 31 March 2022 – Ot301, Amsterdam, The Netherlands In a talk about their audiovisual project, ‘Out of Focus’, Louis Braddock Clarke and Zuzanna Zgierska track down the widely dispersed fragments of a meteorite that fell thousands of years ago in Imnaminomen, Greenland. Previously hidden under the ice cap, the deposits have become an open invitation for explorative extraction. Their talk stems from field work in the region and brings forth stories that intersect geological events, mineral extraction and postcolonialism. On Thursday 31 March 2022, Sonic Acts continued the event series Night Air with Melting Cores at OT301 in Amsterdam. This gathering got to the heart of matter – a place of reaction and fusion, where insights are generated and imaginations proliferate. Featuring talks, films, performances and DJ sets, Melting Cores explored the politics of climate archiving, elemental collapse, and the (de)centralisation of cultural perspectives. NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of Sonic Acts events that aim to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Design: Toni Brell https://tonibrell.de Video: Marie Debarbieux https://mariedebarbieux.wixsite.com Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan faboem.nl

NIGHT AIR: SHOCK WAVES Technical Involution by Yann Leguay 5 November 2021 – OT301, Amsterdam, The Netherlands In his lecture ‘Technical Involution’, artist Yann Leguay speaks to the dematerialisation of sound and the evolving effects of interfaces. He follows with a performance of ‘Volta’, based on an electrical arc produced by a plasma speaker so powerful that it emanates magnetic disturbance. Yann Leguay’s work focuses on the notions of dematerialisation, the use of interfaces and the materiality of sound. He has been called a ‘media saboteur’ by the Consumer Waste label, seeking to fold the sound materiality in on itself using basic means in the form of objects, videos, and performances. Since 2007, he has also been producing installations, sculptures, and publications that integrate a critical approach to the meaning of technological evolution. In concerts he pushes the boundaries of accepted norms of audio behaviour, using uncommon machinery for the playback of audio media: opened hard-drives as turntables, an angle grinder as a microphone, the sound of the electricity, etc. His records are equally unusual: readable silkscreen record, a 7” single without a central hole, or a record composed from recordings of vinyl being scratched by scalpel. In an evening of talks, performances and films, Shock Waves considered the materiality of sound as a powerful means of resistance and control. The programme included talks by María Edurne Zuazu, Elena Cohen, and Yann Leguay, films by Aura Satz, an installation by Paula Montecinos and Pedro Matias, along with a performance by White Rose, and DJ set by Noise Diva. NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of Sonic Acts events that aim to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. More information about Shock Waves and its participants can be found at https://sonicacts.com/archive/night-air-shock-waves CREDITS Curation & production: Sonic Acts Design: Toni Brell https://tonibrell.de Video editing: Marie Debarbieux https://mariedebarbieux.wixsite.com Sound mastering: Poul Sven de Haan faboem.nl

NIGHT AIR: SOIL SAMPLES 24 April 2021 - Online Transmission Soil Samples gathers four artists and researchers for performances, presentations and discussions addressing the topic of soil and its geopolitical, colonial, and bodily entanglements. The panel is made up of sound artist Felicity Mangan, researcher and 'tiny miner' Martin Howse, biogeochemist and critical ecologist Kunal Palawat working in tandem with visual artist Dorsey Kaufmann. The event was transmitted online from Rotterdam on Saturday 24 April 2021, with participants and the audience joining from various locations worldwide. FELICITY MANGAN Felicity Mangan is an Australian sound artist and composer based in Berlin since 2008. In different situations, from solo performances and installations to collaborative projects with other artists, Felicity plays with the timbre of animal voices and field recordings to create minimal quasi-bioacoustic environments. Recently, the artist has been exploring the fundamentals of soil life and interspecies creativity, delving into soil’s soundscape, equipped with sensors and imagination. MARTIN HOWSE Martin Howse is occupied with an investigation of the links between the earth, software and the human psyche through the construction of experimental situations, material artworks and texts. From 1998 to 2005 Howse was director of ap, a software performance group working with electronic waste, pioneering an early approach to digital glitch. For the last ten years, he has initiated numerous open-laboratory style projects and performed, published, lectured and exhibited worldwide. KUNAL PALAWAT Kunal Palawat is a terrestrial biogeochemist and critical ecologist currently working at the intersections of pollution, community-based research, data science, and environmental justice at the University of Arizona on occupied Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui lands (so-called Tucson) in the Ramírez-Andreotta Lab. They are also a Lab Manager and Research Associate with the Critical Ecology Lab, a non-profit research and education container striving to explicitly connect systems of oppression/liberation to global change. DORSEY KAUFMANN Dorsey Kaufmann actively challenges disciplinary boundaries by making work at the intersection of art, environmental science, and politics. She primarily works in time-based media; including video, performance, animation, and 3-D installations. Her practice examines the conflict among corporations, governments, and community health. Her work visualises how these tensions and perceptions constantly define and redefine our built environment. NIGHT AIR Night Air is a series of online transmissions from Sonic Acts that aims to make pollution visible by bringing forth the various side-effects of modernity: from colonial exploitation of people and resources to perpetual inequalities brought about by the destruction of the environment and common land – in other words, destructive capitalist practices that shape both our environment and human-nonhuman relations. More information about Soil Samples and its participants can be found at https://bit.ly/3H6YTbH. CREDITS Production: Sonic Acts Host: Margarita Osipian Visual design: Deborah Mora Sound design: Igor Dubreucq Additional help: Mark den Hoed, Karl Klomp, Karl Moubarak and Jorg Schellekens, as well as Hackers and Designers and The Hmm. Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Sonic Acts is supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK) and Paradiso.

EXHAUST – A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON OIL AND DATA 27 February 2021 - Online Transmission Curated by Sonic Acts OVEREXPOSED artistic research resident, writer and theorist Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Exhaust features political and environmental anthropologist Omolade Adunbi, media artist and programmer Ryan Kuo, artist and geographer Helen Pritchard and interdisciplinary researcher Andrea Sempértegui, as well as moderation by critic, curator and art historian Murtaza Vali. The event was transmitted online from Rotterdam on Saturday 27 February 2021, with participants and the audience joining from various locations worldwide. Propelled by the phrase ‘data is the new oil’, coined in 2006 by British mathematician (and customer loyalty card inventor) Clive Humby, Exhaust draws on the insights of eminent academic thinkers and influential practitioners to speculate, critique and make visible the cultural geography of oil and data. More information about Exhaust and its participants can be found at https://bit.ly/3CasgWK. CREDITS Production: Sonic Acts & Maryam Monalisa Gharavi Host: Margarita Osipian Additional help: Danne Hekman, Mark den Hoed, Karl Klomp, Karl Moubarak, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, as well as Hackers & Designers and The Hmm. Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Sonic Acts is supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK) and Paradiso.