Sonic experiences – music, talks, conversations – function as important events in which to stage encounters for human collective experience. In addition to generating opportunities for individuals to gather in the formation of temporary communities, sound is also an area of focus for contemporary artists and artists’ collectives across the world, many of whom share radical goals.

Making and presenting experimental work in the space of sound and listening in Taiwan and involves different challenges and opportunities than in Australia. Australia and Taiwan both have a strong history of self-organisation in which collectivism figures as a response to specific local conditions. Perhaps the question of how to live as a creative practitioner under late capitalism creates another context of shared experience from which we can converse and listen. The demands of (self-)production in the neoliberal regimes of cultural expression of the international artworld generate significant forces with which artists must contend, whether working individually, collectively – or, as is most often the case, across both solo and collective practice.

What are some of the affordances of sound and listening for artists seeking collective and collaborative approaches to artistic production in Australia and Taiwan? Can a dialogue across sound cultures help us to listen differently, more deeply, with more sensitivity for nuances of voice, noise and silence? What rituals of collective listening might help us achieve this?

This symposium program stages a series of encounters between Taiwanese and Australian artists, critics, producers and musicians within the prestigious setting of the National Taiwan Museum of Art.

Presented by Liquid Architecture, Australia’s premiere sound art organisation, with keynote introductions by leading artist Hong-Kai Wang and curator-researcher Jeph Lo, the symposium will explore notions of individual and collective practice in sound and listening in the setting of intercultural dialogue and exchange.

The symposium will include keynote speeches, artist and collective interviews, and musical performances.

schedule

SESSION 1: KEYNOTE SPEECHES
Hong-Kai Wang – Topology of Clairaudience
Jeph Lo – Tracing Sound in Taiwan
Danni Zuvela and Anabelle Lacroix -Subjective Listening

SESSION 2: LECTURE-PERFORMANCE
Lecture-performance, The Weirding Module, by Nathan Gray

SESSION 3: DIALOGUES
Lacking Sound and Jannah Quill
Ting Shuo and Clare Cooper
Acid House and Andrew McLellan

SESSION 4: COLLECTIVE LIVE PERFORMANCE OUTDOOR
Outdoor performance by Rainbow Chan, Jannah Quill, Andrew McLellan, Clare Cooper, Siao-Chi Chen and Min-ju Lee