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Soy&Synth 2022

“South by South Sonic Serenade Series”

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 documentation
 compilation album

Soydivison, together with L-KW and Midnight Shift will be making a special edition of Soy&Synth for 2022 by presenting a 3-part series called “South by South Sonic Serenade”. The series will tease out deeper dialogues and improvised performances with sound artists and musicians from South East Asian and South American diasporic backgrounds.

Beyond shared similarities along natural landscapes, flora and fauna, South East Asia and South America also share sound and musical practices that deal, subtly or not, with the (often violent) devices, legacies, and cultural and political complexities of colonialism. Subcultures have emerged in both regions in terms of contemporary art and music, with many artists working at the intersection of these entanglements either ‘at home’ or ‘abroad’. While Berlin has become a melting pot and refuge for many artists and practices with ties to these regions, the representation of these discourses - curated and instigated by artists diasporised from these regions - is missing.

A final gathering and discourse program involving participants from the program will also be held in November in collaboration with Radical Sounds Latin America which we term affectionately as a South to South dialogue:)

We therefore warmly invite you to claim, disobey, resist and serenade with our entangled sonic heritages with whatever ‘sounds’ good together.

Format:

In each of the concerts, there will be 2 improvised sets (1 artist from South East Asia + 1 artist from South America diasporic backgrounds). On November 16th a final discourse gathering with series artists, co-hosted within a Radical Sounds Latin America festival program will be held.

All sets will be live recorded and mastered in Berlin. A digital album documenting the series containing all sets from those 3 concerts will be co-launched in December 2022 by Midnight Shift and L_KW and made available for free download.

Dates:

27 August 2022
Heizhaus at Uferstudios | uferstrasse 23 , 12247 Berlin | Door open at 19:30

AnaRosa + Tanat Teeradakorn

Dea Karina + Connie Mandale

 Documentation here

24 September 2022
Morphine Raum | Köpenicker Str. 147, 10997 Berlin

Kei Watanabe + qeei

Debbie Chia + Verónica Mota

Info/tickets: (link)

28 October 2022
Kantine am Berghain | Am Wriezener bhf, 10243 Berlin

Carla Boregas + ghaliz

messyfingers + Marcioz

Info/tickets: (link)

Artists:

Organizers:

Ariel Orah

Ariel William Orah is a sound artist, performer and curator. He was born in Bandung, Indonesia and has lived and worked in Berlin, Germany for the past 10 years. His work and research interests include socially engaged art making, social and climate injustice, and identity, memory, and scarcity. As part of his artistic practice, Orah works with various sound media, techniques and formats such as sound art, sound installation, sound performance, sound workshop, sound setting and sound composition for film and theater. Since 2008, Orah has presented his work in Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Australia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. He is co-founder of the empathy-driven sound artist collective L-KW, the Berlin-based Indonesian contemporary art collective SOYDIVISION.BERLIN, and the non-profit arts and culture organization Diantara e.V..

Selected sound works include an experimental music theater "ARYATI" (2022), sound performance and diorama "TANA SADJI" (work in progress for Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart Berlin, as part of the exhibition "Nation, Narrative, Narcosis, 2022), lecture performance on decolonizing sounds GAUNG - UNVORHERBESTIMMTE RESONANZ for Ballhaus Naunynstrasse Berlin (2021), a theater music composition "Götzendämmerung. Post-Funk-Tische Ergüsse zum Zeitgeschehen" for Zimmertheater Tübingen (2019) and a sound and image installation commissioned for Tanz im August Festival Berlin (2016). He has released numerous solo albums under the pseudonym ravenative and is actively involved in various music projects such as grau&, soydivision ensemble, böseblick ensemble and OKNUM.

In addition to his work as an artist, he is also active as a curator, especially in the field of sound. His recent curatorial activities include soy&synth (experimental music and food showcase, 2018-present), NNN Fair 2021 (diaspora art festival, Rotterdam, 2021), KAUM Performance & Film Festival (Berlin, 2021) and CTM Festival Hacklab (Berlin, 2022).

Info: https://www.soydivision.berlin / http://www.ravenative.com

Kavan Spruyt

Founder and owner of the Midnight Shift record label and events entity, also currently a booking agent and logistics manager for an agency in Berlin. Ex-committee board member of Singapore Music Society (SGMUSO), Head of Marketing and Music for the now defunct Singapore-based underground club kyo and also instrumental in the movement of #SaveMusicSG, a campaign to bring back live music and entertainment in Singapore, after the pandemic back in 2020.

Info: https://mnshift.net

Morgan Sully

Morgan (he/him) is an American-born, Berlin-based sound artist, musician and DJ with southeast-asian ancestry and diasporic tendencies.

Morgan currently manages label operations for L-KW, hosts a monthly radio show on Refuge Worldwide, and co-curates Soy&Synth with performing art collective, Soydivision.

With Soydivision, Morgan collaborated with Rabih Beaini from Morphine Records for a musical staging of KIAMAT, inspired by Senyawa’s Alkisah, which they also co-released with over 40 other record labels.

Morgan also performs as Memeshift, coaxing danceable musical forms from common grooveboxes, old laptops, drum machines, Ableton Live and off-the-shelf synthesizers. Morgan’s other projects include .obat. which emits resonant drones for attentive listening and messyfingers which complexifies and performs site-specific electroacoustic music inspired by gamelan percussion.

Morgan’s musicological interests include ballads, spirituals and other roots Americana as well as FM synthesis, gamelan and site specific sound composition. Morgan has taught and produced music and sound for a variety of community documentaries, independent films, media centers, festivals and interactive dance performances in Australia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, and the Netherlands.

Info: https://www.memeshift.com

Pedro Oliveira

Pedro Oliveira is a researcher, sound artist and educator interested in a decolonizing inquiry of listening at the border. He is currently a fellow of the Junge Akademie der Künste Berlin, and holds a PhD from the Universität der Künste Berlin.

Info: https://oliveira.work

Read more about our Code of Conduct for this edition of Soy & Synth here: https://www.soydivision.berlin/Code-of-Conduct

Funded by Musicboard GmbH