“Ultimately everything interconnects.” (1)
“Down where it’s greeny, where it’s salty, the earth moves against the world under the undercover of blackness, its postcognitive, incognitive worker’s inquest and last played radio.” (2)
The artists who contributed to this final chapter of YCTM examine the sonic response-ability of the world that struggles to free itself of humanity. Starting with memories and dreams intercepted by sound in film and moving towards the felt effects of climate change and extinction, the chapter holds space for an empathic future where human-centred civilities become holistic code. This chapter is co-presented with Infrasonica and with Kunsthall Trondheim.
The protagonist in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021) describes a recurring encounter with a haunting boom: “It’s like a rumble, coming from deep inside the Earth…”, the grinding sound of what Stefano Harney and Fred Moten describe as the “…movement of the Earth against the world.” (3) In their essay on Weerasethakul’s sonic works, Abhijan Toto examines the cinema as a place where “…our relationship to multiple worlds becomes palpable, in all their friction and violence, and sound can be heard across worlds.” The essay is accompanied by “Memory of the Future,” a track produced by Koichi Shimizu for Weerasethakul’s film Syndromes and a Century (2006).
In the multi-channel sound installation Vedøya—lament to the bird mountain who lost its voice, # 1 (2022), Elin Már Øyen Vister gives voice to the Vedøya (Røst) mountain. Once home to one of Northern Europe’s largest nesting colonies for seabirds, Vedøya went silent in 2020 as a result of changes to the climate and sharp declines in marine ecology. The large rock now serves as a monument to the extinction of the numerous species, sounds, and bird languages that once occupied its slopes. Presented with Kunsthall Trondheim, the segment is organized in tandem with Øyen Vister’s collaborative exhibition Kunna Guanna Concha with Sissel M. Bergh and Carolina Caycedo, which also includes works by Janicke Schønning and David de Rozas. The exhibition at the Kunsthall is curated by Stefanie Hessler with Katrine Elise Agpalza Pedersen and Kaja Grefslie Waagen in collaboration with the exhibiting artists.
stones make birds make stones (2017) by Kite includes recordings of a Hudson River estuary, the river lapping at the feet of the poet, the Taos hum, a Jacob’s Ladder electrical device, the rehearsal of a conch shell sextet, a harp excerpt from a previous work, and the artist’s voice. Kite says, “You see, every cell in your body contains information about the world.” In the Oglala Lakotas’s ontology “…even materials such as metals, rocks and minerals can be capable of volition.” In their 2017 essay Making Kin with the Machines, co-written with Jason Edward Lewis, Noelani Arista and Archer Pechawis, Kite reiterates the material agency of stone, rock, and mineral in creating cell technology, since “AI is formed from not only code, but from the materials of the earth.” (4)
Filmmaker and artist Lawrence Lek’s video Black Cloud (2021) proposes a scenario in which a world now devoid of humans continues to exercise scenarios of memory, trauma, self-help and affirmation as it struggles to maintain defunct standards of civility and surveillance. The narrative unfolds through conversations between a city surveillance AI named Black Cloud and their therapist, Guanyin. This work presents AI not as a technological product or novelty-producing generative tool, but as a container for affect and emotion. In the accompanying interview, a conversation between Lek and curators Rachael Rakes and Reem Shadid touches on the traumas of human-driven catastrophe for human-engineered beings. As the self-driving guardian regains their spiritual freedom they note that “…the past disappears, because it is just a memory. The future disappears because it hasn’t happened. It’s always like this. Tomorrow never comes.” The segment is co-presented with Infrasonica.
Kunsthall Trondheim is the largest international arena for contemporary art in Trondheim and the Trøndelag region. Through exhibitions and public programs, the Kunsthall engages with the local scene, introduces leading international artists as well as overlooked positions, and connects to a large and diverse audience. Kunsthall Trondheim is located on Indigenous land in Åarjelsaepmie or southern Saepmie / Sápmi / Sábme.
Infrasonica is a digital platform of non-Western cultures. It records, analyzes and debates the eeriness of sound and its auras, linked to the world with the audible, the hidden and the sensitive. The platform includes archives of experimental sound and visual artists, as well as theoretical musings on contemporary critical thought. Infrasonica is thrilled to join Xenia Benivolski and Lawrence Lek in the latest chapter of You Can’t Trust Music, together with contributing editors Rachael Rakes and Reem Shadid.
You Can’t Trust Music (YCTM) presented by e-flux is a research project connecting sound-based artists, musicians, writers, composers, and writers and exploring the way that landscape, acoustics, and musical thought contribute to the formation of social and political structures. It is presented on a platform designed by Knoth&Renner and developed by Knoth&Renner with Jonas Holfeld.
YCTM on e-flux.com is made possible with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. It is produced by e-flux and developed in partnership with M WOODS, NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC), Liquid Architecture, Art Gallery of York University, Kunsthall Trondheim, and Infrasonica. This chapter owes special thanks to Theresa Wang, Jayne Wilkinson and Robert Steenkamer.
YCTM is curated by Xenia Benivolski.
1 Ito, J., “Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto,” trans. H. Yamagata, Journal of Design and Science, 2017. https://doi.org/10.21428/8f7503e4.
2. Harney, S. and Moten, F. “Base Faith,” e-flux journal 86, November 2017. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/86/162888/base-faith/, accessed January 15, 2023.
3. Ibid.
4. Lewis, J. E., Arista, N., Pechawis, A., & Kite, S. “Making Kin with the Machines,” Journal of Design and Science, 2018. https://doi.org/10.21428/bfafd97b.
