In the spirit of posing answers for questions not yet asked, in November Soundsabout showcases time-based works that function on multiple temporal scales. By merging, questioning, and reinventing formats like performances, lectures, workshops, or listening sessions, an indeterminate map takes form, presenting a speculative cartography in expanding directions.
In 1977, Jacques Attali claimed that music announces a society to come, heralding the political, economic, and cultural order of succeeding generations. He seemed to rightfully predict the political economy of different epochs based on the structural relations between music and noise. Through this method, he problematized the industrialization of music as a commodity in the 20th century, in what he called “the stockpiling of time”, a circumstance which led -among other things- to a repetitive and incapacitating way of thinking about possible futures outside of the normative modes of production. The conceptualization of time as a commodity gives rise to a generalized disillusion concerning viable alternatives. We seem to find ourselves constantly asking, “What comes next?”. Production and its subsequent critique appear to be in a constant panic, trying to look for an exit in the next object of novelty that could break this stagnation of meaning.
The exhibition explores, in contrast, what it means to position ourselves amid precarity and unpredictability. Instead of seeing the world through the binary of progress and decay, is it possible to accept indeterminacy as the condition of our time? Anna Tsing, in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World, characterizes assemblages as open-ended gatherings whose emergent effects of encounters make life happen. Compared to the unified beat that progress marches to, assemblages are the unintentional interplay of multiple temporal rhythms and trajectories. By adopting the term polyphonic assemblages, we inquire about communal effects without assuming them and speculate on reframing how we pose the questions that make us think about the future.
Location: Zwitschermaschine, Potsdamer Str. 161, 10783 Berlin
PROGRAM:
3-5. November: Collected Fictions (1874-1970) by Diego Behncke
Vernissage: 3.November, 18:00-22:00
Opening times: 12:00-18:00
Finissage: 5. November, 18:00-22:00, Diego Behncke performs: “I know where I am, but I don’t feel that I am where I am”
4. November 18:00-22:00: Turbo-Meykhana (The Electronic Music Genre You Never Heard About) Lecture and Listening Session by Farhad Farzali
10-12. November: Performance Publica By Ruben Bass
Vernissage: 10. November, 18:00-22:00
Opening times:
11. November: 16:00-20:00
12. November: 14:00-18:00
17-19. November: Abolitionist Jelly Jam: Transforming Connections within Dissonance
Three days of collective listening, readings and reflections on prison and police abolitionism, transformative justice and the vocalization of grief as a feminist practice. Initiated by MINQ and Derek MF Di Fabio featuring the Abolitionist Jelly.
24-26. November: Performance Weekend
24. November: 18.00-22:00 Soft as Snow “Organ Candy” Record Release
25. November: 18:00-22:00 Premiere of Thank You For Waiting by True Romantic, SoundS Film Archive, DJ Sets
26. November: 18:00-22:00: Season Closing night: Performances by Germaine Png, Zach Hart and Makoto Oshiro