Music is often celebrated for its edifying nature, able to uplift the listener morally and intellectually: “music can change the world”. Yet, this romanticized approach risks to inhibit the actual agency of sound. Together with artists performing at Rewire festival, Giada Dalla Bontà will discuss the ways in which sonic agency operates through affects and sonic fictions as well as physical bodies and matter. How can contemporary forms of resistance be auditory in a world dominated by visual culture? How do these qualities translate in the systems and infrastructures of music-making and listening, and what are their challenges? By taking into consideration how different technologies of sounding and spatio-temporal dimensions are interwoven within this constellation, this session will discuss current social and political issues and the role of sound in creating unexpected alliances and forms of collective and intimate resistance.

The public is invited to select a sound sample (maximum 1’30”min) that represents their idea or their experience of sounding resistance, or that instead shows its limits, along with a very brief description. Samples can be sent at reflections@rewirefestival.nl up to one day before the talk to be part of the collective listening session.

Giada Dalla Bontà is a researcher, curator and writer focusing on unofficial Soviet and post-Soviet art and music; art and politics; underground cultures and experimental music. She is based in Berlin and Copenhagen, where she holds a PhD fellowship at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with the Sound Studies Lab. She recently organized the symposium WHAT SOUNDS DO - New Directions in an Anthropology of Sound in Copenhagen, and SOUNDEAST- Sonic Inquiries Into Cultures from Central and Eastern Europe & Central Asia.