The BOOM! Symposium brings together artists, curators, and thinkers to critically reflect on the mutual impact of creative music and society. Two sessions will shed more light on the relationships of Eastern European vs Western music infrastructures, and on the potential of creating alternative models of artistic production and future societies making use of advancing present-day technology. Thematic sessions will be accompanied by talks and Q&A sessions, introducing this year’s festival artists.

All are welcome and there will be coffee and refreshments. No registration needed.

 

In such turbulent times as we are living, we all are more and more aware that it is not only aesthetic aspects of the music that are at play: we sense an increasing need to pose questions about broader contexts of new works, and rethink existing relationships of music, art, and society. We believe that no sound is innocent (as famous improvisor Eddie Prévost once stated). Music is not free of political meaning, or, maybe even mobilising social potential. There is something that we can, and sometimes must say about the world around us.

Therefore: BOOM! symbolises a wake up call. BOOM! wants to shake our perspectives on music and sonic art vis-à-vis social, environmental, technological, and political challenges. Does music have predictive abilities about the future and, if so, what is it we hear when we pay close attention to it? BOOM! encourages us to think together about challenging existing power hegemonies on different scales and investigating how they could be disrupted. What role can creative music and technology play in maintaining inspiring communities and finding alternatives? BOOM! wants to make everyone aware of the crucial role creativity, experimentation, and freedom of expression play in a sustainable society. BOOM! stands for a necessity to stand up against stereotypes and dogmatic thinking—in art, music, and society. Maybe now is the right time for radical ideas and visionary thinkers to help us reinvent the future again. BOOM! after which we perhaps will hear the world differently.

 

PROGRAMME:

 

Fri 30 Sep
A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture
9:30-11:30 SESSION 1: GEOPOLITICS & CREATIVE MUSIC CULTURES

Host: Kristoffer Cornils

Speakers: Olga Bekenshtein, Agata Pyzik, Lucia Udvardyová

What one could describe as “centres” of experimental and electronic music are anywhere but Eastern Europe. Is it actually true? And if so, what are the implications of this for artists from this region? How can artists think about progress, innovation and integrity without always comparing their work to the status quo defined by Western structures, common conceptions of success and idols embedded in realities so different to the ones surrounding us? Does the world *really* have a centre?

 

11.45-12.45 NEXTalks: Tom Mudd
This year’s festival artists talk about their work.

 

13:00-14:00 Lunch Break

 

14:00-14:45 Goodiepal – Lecture

A pioneering figure in Danish sound art and computer music, Goodiepal (whose real name is Parl Kristian Bjørn Vester) has been giving lectures all over the world on the subject of radical computer music and radical software, his own compositional practice, and also alternative and artificial intelligence.

 

14:45-16:30 SESSION 2: TECHNOLOGY, POWER, COMMUNITIES & ALTERNATIVE FUTURES

Host: Ján Solčáni

Speakers: Mary C, Andreas Dzialocha, Moisés Horta Valenzuela

The afternoon session of presentations and panel discussion will offer some insight into technologies as a means of imagining a future beyond the bleak prospects offered by the status quo we see around us. The speakers come from different backgrounds, and will discuss everything from power structures to unconventional technological approaches to community-building to initiatives aimed at empowering the people on the margins in our communities.