Rewire is excited to announce its context programme, taking place at The Grey Space in The Middle, Page Not Found, West Den Haag, the Royal Conservatoire, Radio WORM, 1646, and The Hague’s city centre from 3 to 6 April. Situated around its music and performance line-up, Rewire’s context programme aims to open a space for collective reflection, and to bring the various practices of its artists into conversation with one another. In these ongoing troubling times, marked by political violence, polarisation, and environmental collapse, the context programme asks what it means to stay and listen with each other. Revolving around questions of listening-with, elements of sounding, sonic testimonies, and ears to the ground, each day – through conversations, sound walks, workshops, and listening sessions – will examine the ways in which artists invite listeners to recalibrate their relationships with their surroundings, while asking where they are listening from.
Starting on the opening day of the festival, the Listening-with programme is a collaborative effort to foster interdisciplinary approaches to sounding and listening within and beyond the arts and academia. Organised by and with students, staff, and alumni from KC (Sonology, Composition, Jazz, ArtScience, Art of Sound), KABK (ArtScience, Graphic Design), UvA (Sound as Decolonial Method course), and Sandberg Instituut (Artificial Times, Studio for Immediate Spaces), the programme invites students, autodidacts, and those who want to (un-)learn together, to join the workshops, audio walks, conversations, performances, and listening sessions. The programme is presented in collaboration with West Den Haag.
The Listening-with programme will start with two audio walks by participants from Sonology (KC). The Lament of the Water invites listeners to access The Hague’s waterscape and its straightened, covered, and invisible water bodies through active, embodied listening. The audio walk Paperwork does not work engages the ways that people struggle with the machinery of bureaucracy, inviting reflection on the absurdities and challenges of navigating systems designed to control movement and identity.
The immersive experience No Spectators at Chasm’s Door by Absala, Aniketh, Koen Gijsman, Deniz Hakman, and Ömür Güven Kırlı centres a Palestinian folk-tale dealing with the act of bearing witness to an incident that took place inside a well, and invites participants to take on different roles as storytellers and witnesses.
Following last year’s iteration, Sandberg Instituut’s Artificial Times and Studio for Immediate Spaces Departments collaborate again for a listening session Between Soundwaves, reflecting on the complexities of the systems and structures that inform people’s listening practices. Meanwhile, participants from ArtScience (KC/KABK), will activate the in-between spaces of West Den Haag during their performance route Inner and Outer Worlds.
Marking the opening of the exhibition Proximity Music: Echoes of Entropy, artists Ioana Vreme Moser, Navid Navab, Coralie Vogelaar, and iii curator Yannik Güldner will enter into a conversation with Ceola Tunstall-Behrens at the Alphabetum in West Den Haag. The conversation will be followed by a lecture on the ethics of listening by writer and philosopher Miriam Rasch expanding upon her recent book Luisteroefeningen (Listening Exercises), and the launch of the Rewire x Norient online special Where Sound Becomes Witness. All programmes are accessible for free, meaning a Rewire festival pass is not required for entry.
From Friday onwards, The Grey Space in The Middle and Page Not Found will operate as the main centres of gravity for Rewire’s context programme. Friday’s programme, Elements of Sounding, delves into the poetics and politics of working with the voice, and the various ways in which artists work with instruments and develop their own sound universes using musical tools, from traditional to self-built instruments.
The two-day symposium The RING: On Instrumental Time, curated by Xenia Benivolski and Rachael Rakes, focuses on the relationships between clocks and instruments, and music and time. Starting with an introductory lecture by Benivolski and Rakes, the symposium will continue with a listening session on Instruments as Time-Pieces, where they will be joined by artists Mo'ong Santoso Pribadi (Takkak Takkak) and Billy Bultheel.
Prior to experimental musician, vocalist, and composer Joan La Barbara’s rare performance at Rewire, she will enter into a conversation with Ceola Tunstall-Behrens about the different ways of working with the voice as an instrument throughout her career. Collective forms of singing in choirs or vocal ensembles play a recurring role during this festival edition, and the collective voice will be explored together with artists Clarissa Connelly and Sian O'Gorman (of NYX), in conversation with Radna Rumping.
Following their performance CORTEX, as part of Rewire’s opening evening, dancer and choreographer Kianí del Valle and director and mixed-media artist Anna Diaz (of Hamill Industries) will talk with Giada Dalla Bontà about their interdisciplinary collaboration, and how CORTEX cultivates a space where individual and communal expression converge. DJ and producer aya will enter into a conversation with Hugo Emmerzael, unpacking her extensive sonic universe with a focus on her new record hexed!
Ways of writing and publishing about music cultures and place will be discussed with Norient’s Philipp Rhensius during the launch of the publication Home Is Where The Heart Strives, as well as with FLEE project’s Alan Marzo and Olivier Duport at and in collaboration with Page Not Found.
Friday will also kick-off a series of broadcasts by participants from the Rewire Transmissions radio-making workshop, the Radio Conversations hosted by Samantha Lippett (ICRN), and Radio WORM, who will again be broadcasting live from The Grey Space with interviews, livestreams, and conversations, reflecting and reporting over the course of the festival days.
Friday’s context programme will close with a second iteration of Fragile Minutes, in collaboration with Nieuwe Instituut’s Federica Notari. Alongside the audience, rEmPiT g0dDe$$ and alys(alys)alys are invited to share their coming-of-age experiences, and speak about how personal encounters with music evolve into collective expressions and shared spaces and scenes.
Against the backdrop of ongoing colonialism and war, artists work with the possibilities of sound and music as testimony. The Hague, as a city of “justice” with the Peace Palace and the International Court of Justice, forms an interesting context in this regard. In what ways can technologies, instruments, and listening techniques be applied to document, reconstruct, and preserve (sound) cultures that are under threat or have been forgotten? Artists and researchers look for ways of listening to how places sounded before, how they sound today, and how they will sound when current developments extrapolate into the future.
A good example of this is the multi-sensory performance The Drum and the Bird. Prior to their performance, Forensis’s Celina Abba, Mark Mushiba, and Tobechukwu Onwukeme will enter into a conversation with Giada Dalla Bontà about the ways in which their work examines the relationship between lost ecologies and colonial exploitation – highlighting voices and sounds that have been silenced or altered as a result of German colonialism on Shark Island, Namibia.
Ways of gathering around sonic archives will be explored at Page Not Found. From the echoes of the vibrant vinyl era of 1960s and 1970s Iran, Katayoun Arian’s listening session Echoing Archives brings together archival sounds that focus on jazz fusion and big band music. The programme continues with Resonances of Change: Listening Beyond Timezones curated by Golnoosh Hesmati, who invites Cristina Cochior, pantea, and Yamen Mekdad to reflect on community building and spaces for collaborative listening and social action. Meanwhile, Samantha Lippett and Radna Rumping will discuss the preservation and activation of web radio archives at Radio WORM, while listening to recordings from JaJaJaNeeNeeNee, a radio space for curatorial and artistic practices.
For the second day of the symposium The RING: On Instrumental Time, Xenia Benivolski and Rachael Rakes will be joined by artists Merche Blasco, Nyokabi Kariũki, and Juliette Lizotte who will share their different approaches to exploring intersections of sound, ancestry, and landscape. Blending sonic experimentation with socio-political critique, artist Mo Laudi will give a lecture performance at art space 1646, while exploring themes of deep listening and radical hospitality.
In celebration of the new publication Poetics of Listening: Inner Life, Social Transformation, Planetary Practices, artist and writer Brandon LaBelle will present a set of soft seminars on restorative listening, posing listening as a means for fostering greater recognition and repair.
Finally, a special conversation between artist in focus Alvin Curran and Yannis Kyriakides at The Grey Space will close Saturday’s programme. They reflect on Curran’s idiosyncratic compositions including Canti Illuminati, Maritime Rites, and Shofar Rags which he will present at Rewire.
The last day of Rewire’s context programme, Ears to the Ground, delves into how artists find ways of listening to and with the environment, while critically assessing the impact of the technologies they use, and how they are entangled with natural ecologies. How can one attune to local landscapes with instruments, new technologies, and forms of field recording, and how can these ways of listening be shared through music and audiovisual work? What histories do people carry with them when they listen, and how does each person’s listening position differ?
In Zahra Malkani’s listening session Sada, Sada or Sound/Forever, Forever/Sound, a series of field recordings tell the story of ongoing ecological battles as echoes of a long history of water-women kinship in struggle. A conversation on material ecologies will also take place, unpacking Sébastien Robert and Mark IJzerman’s audiovisual performance Another Deep on the topic of deep sea mining in Norway, alongside artists from collective Verdensteatret, whose extended cinema-concert-theatre performance draws inspiration from the cyclical nature of energy and waste, in both human and non-human life.
Decolonial initiative Content Care will unsettle contemporary appropriation of local sonic traditions in a care-centered listening session, inviting Egyptian maverick Hassan Abou Alam and the experimental Belgian-Iraqi trio Use Knife for an afternoon of dwelling and listening with their sonic practices. Brandon Labelle also continues his seminar series Restorative Listening at Page Not Found, whilst Radio WORM’s Ash Kilmartin will interview Roald van Dillewijn, Michelle Vossen (Sounds Like Touch) and RɅɅɅF /Unbinare and Yolanda van Welij about the creative processes behind both the Tactology Lab and Taxonomies of Noise workshops and lectures.
Continuing from last year, the Music Journalism Today panel discussion will delve into the ever-changing landscape of music journalism and independent publishing practices, this time with Sasha Frere-Jones, Alan Marzo and Olivier Duport (FLEE project) and moderated by Hugo Emmerzael. The panel will end with a launch of the festival’s own music magazine Rewire Reflections. For the final day of Radio Conversations, Samantha Lippett (ICRN) invites author of Radiophilia Carolyn Birdsall to explore the on-air “magic” that has made radio a medium that has stood the test of time and technological advancement.
London-based drone choir NYX invites singers and non-singers of all abilities to their vocal workshop to experience the power of collective vocal embodiment and deep listening. Meanwhile student-run series CAAOSSS will present their findings of noise as a powerful force for challenging norms and expressing dissent in Noise as a form of Resistance, in the form of a curated sound gallery that will feature fixed media works alongside live installations and short performances.
This year, people joining the festival are invited to share festival experiences via voice messages, by sending them to transmissions@rewirefestival.nl. Please be aware, these recordings might be publically shared during Radio WORM broadcasts via Radio WORM.
For their third year as broadcast partner for Rewire’s context programme, Radio WORM returns to The Grey Space booth to share and archive threads of the festival: live events will be livestreamed on radio.worm.org, along with broadcasts by Rewire Transmissions workshop participants, Radio Conversations in collaboration with the Independent Community Radio Network, and yet-to-be-announced appearances by Rewire artists and audiences.
Norient and Rewire also continue their series of online publications with Where Sound Becomes Witness, which dives into the connections between music, sound, and listening as a form of witnessing. Featuring essays and audio pieces, the contributions reflect on ideas about the importance and critical potential of listening beyond one’s ear and its ethics. The publication will be launched on 3 April at West Den Haag.
Nieuwe Instituut and Rewire co-host another evening Through Sounds x Rewire prior to the festival on Thursday 27 March at Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. The event, with invited artists De Schuurman, No Plexus, Content Care, and Juliette Lizotte, explores coming-of-age experience through music, tracing how personal encounters with music and sound evolve into collective expressions, shared spaces, and scenes. The collaborative programme continues at Rewire with Fragile Minutes on Friday 4 April.
Thursday 3 April
– Workshop: No Spectators at Chasm’s Door by Absala, Aniketh, Koen Gijsman, Deniz Hakman, and Ömür Güven Kırlı
– Listening Session: Between Soundwaves with Adriana Miyagusuku, Aslı Nur Mahmutoğlu, Blanca Borell, Cara Mayer, Charlène Dannancier, Giada La Gala, Gustavo Cambareri, Inês Pereira, Ioanna Mitza, Janomax, JS Donny, Laura Trance, Lisa van Heyden, Lucia Nijdam, Lupita Reggiani, Magdalena Zotou, Martijn Van de Wiele, Mel Keane, Nadoe, Nina Blume, Robin Vandenbussche, Rosa Shepherd, Sammie Staub, Sara Pezzolesi, and Vincent Verheijen (Artificial Times and Studio for Immediate Spaces, Sandberg Instituut)
– Performance Route: Inner and Outer Worlds with Anna Lora, Annia Osuch, Daniel Lythgoe, Domenika Georgiou, Ioannis Michos and Wouter van den Elzen, and Lila de Coninck (ArtScience, KC and KABK)
– Audio walk: The Lament of the Water by Alberto Berera, Sina Fard, Tewa Barnosa, Junying Wu (Sonology, KC)
– Audio walk: Paperwork does not work by Niccolò Angioni, Seolbeen Lee, and Teade Ridder (Sonology, KC)
– Conversation: Proximity Music: Echoes of EntropyProximity Music: Echoes of Entropy with Ioana Vreme Moser, Navid Navab, Coralie Vogelaar, Yannik Güldner, moderated by Ceola Tunstall-Behrens
– Lecture: An Ethics of Listening by Miriam Rasch
– Conversation: Where Sound Becomes Witness – Norient x Rewire publication launch– Norient x Rewire publication launch with Giada Dalla Bontà, Zahra Malkani, Zeynep Oral, Philipp Rhensius, Miriam Rasch, and Katía Truijen
Friday 4 April
– Symposium: The RING: On Instrumental Time. Instruments as Time-Pieces, with Mo'ong Santoso Pribadi (Takkak Takkak), Billy Bultheel, Xenia Benivolski, and Rachael Rakes
– Conversation: with Joan La Barbara, moderated by Ceola Tunstall-Behrens
– Conversation: with aya, moderated by Hugo Emmerzael
– Conversation: Fragile Minutes with rEmPiT g0dDe$$ and alys(alys)alys, moderated by Federica Notari
– Conversation: with Kianí del Valle and Anna Díaz, moderated by Giada Dalla Bontà
– Book launch: Home Is Where The Heart Strives by Norient, with Philipp Rhensius (Norient)
– Conversation: Collective Voices with Clarissa Connelly and Sian O'Gorman (NYX), moderated by Radna Rumping
– Conversation and listening session: Local cultures as artistic fabric: Culturing aesthetics vs aestheticising culture with Alan Marzo and Olivier Duport (FLEE), in collaboration with Page Not Found
– Radio Conversations: Defying borders on air and the creation of translocal communities with Alba (Dublin Digital Radio), Ash Kilmartin (Radio WORM), and hosted by Samantha Lippett (ICRN)
Saturday 5 April
– Workshop: No Spectators at Chasm’s Door by Absala, Aniketh, Koen Gijsman, Deniz Hakman, and Ömür Güven Kırlı
– Conversation: The Drum and The Bird with Celina Abba, Mark Mushiba, and Tobechukwu Onwukeme (Forensis), moderated by Giada Dalla Bontà
– Symposium The RING: On Instrumental Time. Soundscapes as Timescapes with Merche Blasco, Juliette Lizotte, Nyokabi Kariũki, moderated by Xenia Benivolski and Rachael Rakes
– Conversation: with Alvin Curran, moderated by Yannis Kyriakides
– Seminar: Restorative Listening by Brandon LaBelle
– Listening Session: Echoing Archives: Tracing Iran through Jazz and Big Band with Katayoun Arian
– Conversation and listening session: Resonances of Change: Listening Beyond Timezones with Cristina Cochior (Varia), pantea (Khamoosh), and Yamen Mekdad (Syrian Cassette Archives), moderated by Golnoosh Heshmati
– Lecture Performance: by Mo Laudi, in collaboration with 1646
– Radio Conversations: Digital archives and the problem of preservation and ownership of web radio objects, with Radna Rumping (JaJaJaNeeNeeNee) and hosted by Samantha Lippett (ICRN)
Sunday 6 April
– CAAOSSS: Noise as a form of Resistance by Antonia Kattou, Anna Osuch, Cory Latkovich, Niccolò Angioni, and more TBC
– Conversation: Material Ecologies: Another Deep and Flat Sun with Asle Nilsen, Annike Flo, Espen Sommer Eide (Verdensteatret), Sébastien Robert, and Mark IJzerman
– Conversation: Music Journalism Today and Rewire Reflections Zine Launch with Sasha Frere-Jones, Alan Marzo-Strani, Olivier Duport (FLEE project) and Rewire Reflections participants, moderated by Hugo Emmerzael
– Workshop: Bones, Drone, and Tones with NYX
– Presentation: Tactology Lab
– Seminar: Restorative Listening by Brandon LaBelle
– Conversation and listening session: Content Care with Hassan Abou Alam and Use Knife
– Listening session: Sada, Sada or Sound/Forever, Forever/Sound by Zahra Malkani
– Radio Conversations: I <3 my radio stream with Carolyn Birdsall and hosted by Samantha Lippett (ICRN)
– Conversation: Tactology Lab and Taxonomies of Noise with among others Roald van Dillewijn, Michelle Vossen, R ɅɅɅ F /Unbinare and Yolanda van Welij, moderated by Ash Kilmartin
Throughout the weekend
– Radio WORM x Rewire – live interviews and reports at The Grey Space in The Middle
– Rewire Reflections – music magazine workshop and zine launch
– Rewire Transmissions – radio-making workshop and broadcasts