WSK X: Festival of the Recently Possible
The WSK Feedback Forum functions as the platform’s critical feedback mechanism. It’s configured towards the articulation of practices and communities, and geared to spark innovation and new directions through numerous methodologies.
The 2019 edition of the forum, in collaboration with Nusasonic, takes a critical look at both historic and contemporary sound cultures, particularly through issues of representation and discrepancies of power in worlds outside the West.
Given the fascistic turn within and without the Southeast Asian region since the last edition of the forum, the idea that sound and music are also currency and power is emphasized. Through six different panel presentations and discussions, we examine the aesthetics and politics of Philippine revolutionary music from the turn-of-the-century Katipunan era to agit-folk and proletariat punk, to recent activist hip-hop; we unpack gendered artistic and musical expressions, institutional sexism and racism, as well as the tactics and networks we can tap to confront or circumvent them.
We look back at Jose Maceda. Composer-Ethnomusicologist, and argue how noise and Filipino avant-garde art were co-opted and repurposed by the Marcosian state apparatus; we compare the differences and similarities between experimental music and sound art scenes in Asia and Africa, as well as the representational and ethical implications of their promotion in Europe in the throes of political correctness and identity politics. Lastly, we trace the emergence and impact of grassroots electronic dance music from the slums and borderlands of Southeast Asia.
The fora and its diverse topics are poised to spark more conversation and research, to un-map the region in order to challenge new geographies and connections, and to increase awareness of the aesthetic and political dimensions of sonic practices.
Join the forum this October 23-24, at the Ben Chan ArtSuite, Ateneo Art Gallery, 2F Soledad V. Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University. In these dates, panel 1 will proceed from 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM, and panel 2 from 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Stay tuned: bit.ly/WSKX | wsk.io
#FestivalOfTheRecentlyPossible #WSKxNUSASONIC #WSKX
Photo by Utami Atasia Ishii.
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