Sound is able to merge supposed contradictions: in the audio walk «Zero, Land der Zukunft» at Dystopie Festival, our writer finds herself entangled both in dystopian and utopian worlds. Here is a short essay on listening as a mode of creating critical agencies.
In Ghana, everyday life is widely ruled by the Christian religion. The artists portrayed in the film «Contradict» revolt against this religion’s tendency to dominate people’s histories – by writing their own.
What can we learn from a film by listening to it? Rana Eid’s «Panoptic» (2019) takes the viewer on a dark peregrination in the city of Beirut, and becomes a terrain on which images, sounds and voices superimpose and coalesce.
In an era where platforms package music in a way that strips away life’s complexities, Angus Finlayson finds a melancholic antidote in the music documentary «The Long River Slides».
Clive Bell muses on the music documentary «Don’t Rush’s» love for Rembetika – Greek urban folk music essentially made by refugees – and on an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Lacking a common language is not always an obstacle to communication. It can help to build new connections without preconceptions. An essay inspired by the film «In Your Eyes, I See My Country», in which two Israeli musicians travel to Morocco.
Episode 3 of the «Timezones» podcast series, co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut. In this episode, four contemporary artists with a connection to the city of Delhi reflext upon their diverse and evolving practices.
While techno and house have become widely commodified by white Europeans, Tedra Wilson’s documentary Dark City Beneath the Beat shows how Baltimore Club kept its highly localized aesthetics, and proves the richness of Black club music in the 21st century.
Steph Kretowicz is struck by the power of the creative impulse exhibited by Camille Degeye’s protagonist in her short film «Journey Through a Body».
A body is not just perceiving sounds, it is also their medium. Here is an essay about the materiality of sound and how the body shapes the listening process.
How does music affect the image of a city? In his recent book «Deindustrialisation and Popular Music», Giacomo Bottà elaborates the relationship between de-industrialization and genres like house, industrial or post-punk.
