Sonic Writing & Soundings
Residence Program at the Darmstadt Summer Course 2023
A project by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD)
in cooperation with Goethe-Institut
The electronic music of female artists from the Global South are still largely unknown today – after an increasing reception of musical practices from this region in recent years. Therefore, in 2019, we decided to curate a project that addresses this desideratum together with the German, Finnish-based musician, producer, label operator and conceptual artist Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF Poemproducer) and the Republic of Congo-born Cedrik Fermont (C-drík, Kirdec), who, in addition to his various musical activities, also founded and currently runs the large online platform Syrphe. Originally, the premiere of Sonic Writing & Soundings was scheduled for the Darmstadt Summer Course 2020, but then had to be postponed due to the Corona pandemic and took place at the Summer Course 2021 as a purely digital project: The artists met daily with the curators and staff of the Summer Course team on Mastodon and worked on various electronic music pieces in close workshop exchange, exchanging tools and files, which were further worked on and in the end resulted in a joint longer track.
The group, which has remained in contact after the end of the Darmstadt Summer Course in August 2021, consists 2023 of five artists: Linda Mudimba (Zimbabwe), the duo Sarana (Indonesia), PHER (Iran) and [M] (Kenya). With the extremely positive experience of the digital workshop, we would like to invite the artists again for the Summer Course 2023 and continue working together with the two curators. Through the network, which has now been in existence for three years, a continuation of practices can succeed, which will also flow back to the home countries of the musicians. Unfortunately Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى) from Palestine will not be able to join the project in person but will try to participate remotely for some sessions.
The artists will work together for the entire duration of the Summer Course and present their projects and working methods to the Summer Course community. The residence program enables the artists to get to know and make use of the manifold offers of the academy and festival program of the Darmstadt Summer Course, to actively participate in it and to take advantage of the exchange with an international community of musicians and composers. And of course we would like to get to know their work in a showcase at Centralstation on 14 August 2023.
ARTISTS
Lindatumune Nyono Mudimba
Linda Mudimba grew up in Kariangwe in the district of Binga, Zimbabwe. She is currently studying African languages and communication at Lupane State University. She wants to become a journalist to publicly represent the Tonga people and their culture in Zimbabwe and beyond. Her vision is to start a newspaper in ChiTonga. She speaks candidly about the challenges of education for people from rural areas, especially women, and the additional challenge the young BaTonga face as a member of a minority tribe in Zimbabwe, as well as how she herself came to know and appreciate her native language and cultural background against all odds.
Sarana
Sarana is an experimental group based in Samarinda, Indonesia. Formed by Annisa Maharani and Sabrina Eka Felisiana in 2015. Sarana explores various sound sources from electronics to acoustics in order to create sounds that build on emotions.
Farzané
Farzaneh Nouri (Farzané) is an Iranian musician, researcher, and sound artist based in the Netherlands. Interested in experimental approaches to sound, science, and technology, she explores various disciplines such as electroacoustic music composition, computer science, cybernetics, acoustic ecology, and linguistics. As tools in her artistic practice, she uses creative coding, field recording, live electronics, as well as acoustic and programmable instruments. Her recent pieces investigate complex systems, natural algorithms, and human-machine interaction. Farzaneh composes for live performances, interactive installations, films, VR and multi-sensory experiences. The focus of her current research is on artificial intelligence methods in the framework of live electroacoustic music improvisation.
[M]
Wanjiru Ngure (aka [M]) is to be considered one of the most authentic entities of expression to emerge from Kenya. She is a sound artist, creative coder, DJ, tutor and community curator exploring experimental approaches in the various fields. Her sound is a reflection and tool to her greatest desire which is to connect people through music. These tend to be deep and she’s embraced this as her way. Staying true to this she’s created a world of other possibilities and that’s what the scene best appreciates her for. Her recent connections have been through Boiler Room Nairobi, Sónar Festival and Darmstadt Summer Course
Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى )
Born in 1991 in Damascus, Syria, Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى ) moved to Ramallah, Palestine with her family during the Oslo Accords negotiations. She is a visual artist and experimental musician. She holds a Bachelor of the Arts from the International Academy of Arts Palestine and a Master of the Arts in Audio Visual Arts from ISDAT (École supérieure des beaux-arts de Toulouse) in France. Asma describes her work as “experimental music and sound art based on thinking about music and its sonic experience”, bearing witness to the environment in which she lives and works, the violence and political unrest she has experienced in the embattled Palestinian territories, while confronting and exploring the issues of everyday life.
Asma Ghanem has participated in exhibitions, residencies and workshops in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, USA, Lebanon, UAE, Norway, Jordan and Palestine and was awarded the third prize of YAYA (The Young Artist Award – The Hassan Hourani Award, 2016) for her experimental music project “Homeland is…”. She received a special mention for her photography project at the Palest’in & out Festival in Paris in 2015. Asma participated as a fellow in the OneBeat 2017 Global Music Exchange, a U.S. State Department initiative led by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation, which brings together outstanding individual musicians from around the world each year for four weeks of collaborative work and performance.
CURATORS
Antye Greie-Ripatti
is a digital songwriter, sound artist and curator, composer, poet, feminist, activist. She is also known as AGF, Laub, and poemproducer. Born in 1969, and raised in East Germany, she has lived and worked in Hailuoto, Finland since 2008. She works with language, sound, listening, voice, and communication, expressed in mixed media, audiovisual live performances, digital communication, sound installations, commissions for radio, movies and theater, exhibitions and conceptual works. Greie-Ripatti has released 30 long player records, and has been engaged in numerous collaborations under such aliases as AGF, AGF/Delay (with Vladislav Delay), Greie Gut Fraktion (with Gudrun Gut), and The Lappetites (with Kaffe Matthews and Eliane Radigue), among them – for a long term – with the award-winning classical composer Craig Armstrong. She runs the production company and music label AGF Producktion and has produced records for other artists, most famously for Ellen Allien (Sool, 2009, BPitch). In 2011, Greie-Ripatti founded the arts organization Hai Art in Hailuoto, where she serves as artistic director, executive producer, and workshop leader. Hai Art has organized a conference on remote art, more than ten artist-in-residencies, extensive sound program with children in Hailuoto, the iPad Orchestra Hailuoto, the Organum, the Hailuoto (mini) MediaLAB, and numerous artists camps. Since 2011 she works as independent sound curator.
Cedrik Fermont
aka C-drík aka Kirdec is a composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, radio host and concert promoter who has been working in the fields of noise, electronic and electroacoustic music since 1989. He was born in Zaire (DR Congo), grew up in Belgium and now lives in Berlin. He studied electroacoustic music in Belgium with Annette Vande Gorne. Cedrik Fermont has been active internationally since 1989 in various musical projects such as Črno Klank, Axiome and Tasjiil Moujahed as well as a solo artist. He has collaborated with several musicians of the free improvisation scene, especially in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Cedrik Fermont is the founder of Syrphe, an online platform for alternative musicians from Asia and Africa.