Sonic Writing & Soundings
Online residence program at the Darmstadt Summer Course 2021
A project by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD)
in cooperation with Goethe-Institut
The Electronics Atelier at the Darmstadt Summer Course has been held since 2010. Initially planned as a new program area, the project has become more and more self-evident in the academy and festival program over the last five Summer Course editions. With the 50th Darmstadt Summer Course 2021 we take a new approach and have invited two internationally active artists to curate different practices of experimental electronic music: the German, Finland based musician, marxist-feminist and conceptual sound artist Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF, Poemproducer) and the Congolese-born Cedrik Fermont (C-drík, Kirdec), who, in addition to his various musical activities, has founded and now operates the large online platform Syrphe. Both artists will bring in their many years of artistic experience, especially in Asia and Africa.
Antye Greie-Ripatti and Cedrik Fermont curated the residence program “Sonic Writing & Soundings”, that will happen in cooperation with Goethe-Institut, for which they invited six artists: Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى,) (Palestine), Linda Mudimba (Zimbabwe), the duo Sarana (Indonesia), PHER (Iran) and [M O N R H E A] (Kenya). Within the residence program – that will take place online within the Summer Course time (01 – 11 August 2021) – the artists will workshop together as a group and with the curators and develop ideas for a presentation in the festival, make small artist’s portraits, create new music, hold workshops or lectures (individually or in groups), and share their skills in order to discuss different sonic identities. The output of the Sonic Writing & Soundings workshop could be either a podcast, a radio piece or an album or mixtape.
THE ARTISTS
Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى)
Born in 1991 in Damascus/Syria, Asma Ghanem (شمس أسمى) moved to Ramallah in Palestine with her family during negotiations on the Oslo Agreement. She is a visual artist & experimental musician. She has a B.A. from The International Academy of Arts-Palestine & M.A. degree in Audio-Visual Arts from ISDAT (École supérieure des beaux-arts de Toulouse) in France.
Asma Ghanem describes her music as “experimental music and sound art that is based on thinking about music as well as our sonic experience”, it is a testament to the environment in which she lives and creates, to the violence and political turmoil she has witnessed in the disputed Palestinian Territories while at the same time exploring of the issues in everyday life.
Asma has participated in exhibitions, residencies and workshops in Italy, Germany, France, Austria, USA, Lebanon, UAE, Norway, Jordan and Palestine and was awarded the 3rd prize in the YAYA (The Young Artist Award – The Hassan Hourani Award, 2016) for her experimental music project “Homeland is…”. She was also awarded a special mention in the Palest’in & out Festival in Paris in 2015 for her Photography project. Asma Ghanem participated as a Fellow in OneBeat 2017 global music exchange, a U.S. State Department initiative managed by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation that each year brings outstanding individual musicians from around the world to the Unites States for four weeks of collaborative creation and performance.
Lindatumune Nyono Mudimba
Linda Mudimba grew up at Kariangwe in the Binga district in Zimbabwe. She now studies African languages and Communication at Lupane State University. Next to her artistic work she wants to become a journalist, to gain the skills and position of publicly representing the Tonga people and their culture in Zimbabwe and beyond. Her vision is to establish a newspaper in ChiTonga. She frankly talks about the challenges that education poses to people from the rural areas and to women in particular; as well as the added challenge young BaTonga are facing as members of a minority tribe in Zimbabwe; and how she herself came to know and value her native language and cultural background against all odds.
Sarana
Sarana is an experimental group from Samarinda/Indonesia. Formed in May 2015 by Annisa Maharani, Istanara Julia Saputri and Sabrina Eka Felisiana. In every performance, Sarana tries to explore various kinds of sound sources from electronic or non-electronic stuff and add some spoken word to create the sound that builds the emotion.
They have released an EP titled “Heal” (2016) and an album titled “Grow” (2018), and are also involved in some compilation/split with other artists. Sarana has been participating in some gigs and festivals like Jogja Noise Bombing (2016,2018), RRRecfest in The Valley (2016), Samarinda Noise Fest (2017), Nusasonic (2018), Instrumenta: Sandbox (2018), CTM Festival (2019) and Muara Suara (2019).
Their latest work is a sound installation titled “Padu Gaduh” and exhibited at Pekan Seni Media 2019: Sinkronik in Samarinda.
https://soundcloud.com/saranasound
https://jaringanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-negative
Sabrina Eka Felisiana is also active as a solo artist. She is an experimental electronic musician; interpreting expressions of contemporary and indigenous sounds into new impressions. She co-founded Jaringan Records, a project devoted to experimenting and
pushing electronic sounds and circuitry. She is currently working on her next
album.
Farzané
Farzaneh Nouri (aka Pher, Farzané), is an Iranian musician, composer and sound artist based in the Netherlands.Concerned with interdisciplinary ideas, she utilizes creative coding, acoustic and programmable instruments, and live electronics to compose her pieces. Her recent works explore complex systems, natural algorithms, human-machine interaction and autonomous agency of sound objects in hybrid musical systems. She is currently focused on artificial intelligence methods in the framework of algorithmic composition and composing with generative environments to create a complex network of sonic material with emergent behaviors.
https://kopirecs.bandcamp.com/track/syntrivi
https://m.soundcloud.com/phernouri
[ M O N R H E A ]
Coming from an intrinsic desire to be different, [MONRHEA] found herself lured to the experimental underground music scene in Kenya.
The self-taught producer and DJ came to overstand music from her own perspective, with the affinity for heavy bass-driven genres referenced by her name Wanjiru which means “from the dark”.
Based in Athi River, she has already achieved a Sondeka Awards nomination in Nairobi for best experimental producer for her first single “122.2.22.22”, under her label [rhealistic] records and Uganda’s East African Records.
The young artist began experimenting in 2017 when she joined a female support system by the name Femme Electronic under Ugandan DJ Racheal. She is highly inspired by Kenyan producers Raph and KMRU who fuse traditional African sounds with contemporary electronic music and draws strength from techno and bass DJs such as Rathod and Lasta. [MONRHEA] can be eclectic by entertaining crowds with rhumba and Lingala, old school hip-hop and R&B, soul and a pinch of Kenyan classics. She has slowly been buzzing in the Nairobi underground scene, playing at The Backyard Bar and MUZE club. She has further graced East African electronic music stages such as Temple Nairobi, Africa Nouveau Festival, RISE BLN (Kampala) and Nyege Nyege Festival 2019.
[MONRHEA] uses underground electronic music with the aim of reprogramming and transcending minds. Currently, she is working on her debut EP WA.NJIRU and is on a mission to blend dance with her dark experimental music. Last year she was involved at the Kilifi New Year Festival 2019 to expose audiences to her different bassy sounds.
THE CURATORS
Antye Greie-Ripatti
aka AGF aka Poemproducer is a vocalist, musician, composer, producer, and new media artist. She was born and raised in East Germany. Her work explores speech and spoken word combined with electronic music. She also works on sound installations, moving image, audio visualization and real time video processing. In 2009, as part of the collective The Lappetites, she staged the multimedia music theater Fathers in Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In 2011 she initiated the arts organization „Hai Art“ on the island of Hailuoto and acts since then as curator and executive producer. Antye Greie-Ripatti has written feature film scores, theater and dance plays. She performs as AGF (solo), AGF/DELAY (with Vladislav Delay), with Zavoloka, The Dolls (with Vladislav Delay and Craig Armstrong), Laub (with Jotka), and The Lappetites (with Eliane Radigue, Kaffe Mathews and Ryoko Kuwajima).
Cedrik Fermont
aka C-drík aka Kirdec, born in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo), lives at the moment in Berlin. He grew up in Belgium and lived in the Netherlands before he moved to Germany. Cedrik Fermont studied electroacoustic music in Belgium, under the direction of Annette Vande Gorne. He is active as a composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, independent researcher, concert organiser, curator who operates in the field of noise, electronic and experimental music since 1989. Explores electronic, experimental and noise music from Asia and Africa, label manager at Syrphe, radio host at Radio Staalplaat, Freie Radios – Berlin Brandenburg/Colaboradio and Boxout.fm, member of bands like Axiome, Tasjiil Moujahed and many more. Cedrik Fermont has collaborated with many musicians from the free improvised, noise and electroacoustic music scenes and is also active as solo performer.