Instagram story viewer> @sonicacts> Posts

Sonic Acts

@sonicacts

27.7K

followers

2019

following

Interdisciplinary arts organisation in Amsterdam

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

Time seems to stand still in Davachi’s music. Moving between centuries-old instruments and contemporary technologies, the Canadian composer creates immersive sound worlds in which sustained tones reveal unexpected textures, resonances, and ghostly psychoacoustic phenomena.

📖→ Read 'An Endless Note', our newly commissioned interview with Sarah Davachi by Hannah Pezzack, now available on the Sonic Acts Substack. Link in bio.

A recurring presence at Sonic Acts, Davachi performed most recently on the Acousmonium during the ‘Spatial Sound Concerts’ at Paradiso as part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. Her conversation with Hannah Pezzack explores her fascination with the organ, the material and metaphysical qualities of sound, and the strange sonic possibilities that emerge at the edges of perception. From her expansive new triple album 'The Will of Tongues' to receiving the prestigious Silver Lion at this year’s Venice Biennale, the conversation traces an artistic practice that bridges the deep past and the present.

Subscribe to the Sonic Acts Substack from just €5 per month for access to exclusive content from our archive, alongside newly commissioned interviews and essays.

Sonic Acts is supported by @stimuleringsfonds & @afk020. by @sonicacts

34

0

9 hours ago

Part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 series, 'Ex Aqua' is a poetic collaboration bringing together theorist and poet Ayesha Hameed and musician Aimée Theriot in a live exploration of listening, grief, memory, and loss. The piece premiered at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam during the Biennial Symposium.

→ Watch the full performance on the Sonic Acts YouTube channel, or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. LINK IN BIO.

In their performance, Hameed and Theriot explore ‘exaqua’ – a term coined by poet M. NourbeSe Philip in 'Zong!' to describe a watery equivalent of exhumation, or the act of reclaiming from the earth. Inviting the audience into what Palestinian artist Bint Mbareh calls ‘aggressive listening’, they work with fragments of language and sound that surface, overlap, and dissolve. Through improvisation, this resonant performance creates a space where grief, memory, and loss can be approached through the unstable materiality of sound.

This video is part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 Symposium online lecture video series. It is realised as part of ‘New Perspectives for Action’, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the EU.

Video: Engage! TV
Design: Knoth & Renner with Anja Kaiser by @sonicacts

77

0

4 days ago

In ‘All But Silent’, interdisciplinary artist and researcher Sébastien Robert explores the sound phenomena that can accompany the northern lights. Developed during a residency at Artica in Svalbard, the audiovisual installation follows Robert and radio astronomer Rob Stammes as they use antennas and microphones to investigate sounds associated with the aurora.

The work was commissioned by Sonic Acts and presented at Het Documentaire Paviljoen / IDFA Institute during the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026, as part of the exhibition ‘Sounds of Skies, Forests of Instability’ alongside Femke Herregraven's 'The Evacuated'.

Bringing together field recordings, local testimonies, Indigenous knowledge, scientific research and auroral data, ‘All But Silent’ considers what might exist beyond the limits of what we are able to perceive. A sculptural seating structure responds to visitors’ movements, connecting their presence to real-time auroral activity and bringing the distant phenomenon into the space of the installation.

→ Read more about the work via the link in bio.

📷: ‘All But Silent’ at Het Documentaire Paviljoen / IDFA Institute during Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. Photo by Pieter Kers.
📹: ‘Sébastien Robert – All But Silent’, 2026. Published by Sonic Acts and Paradiso.

‘All But Silent’ by Sébastien Robert was co-produced by Sonic Acts and Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, with financial support from Mondriaan Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL, Nederlands Filmfonds, Amarte Fonds, Institut français – Norvège and Artica Svalbard. by @sonicacts

96

1

6 days ago

We are happy to share that a selection of publications from Sonic Acts @sonicacts has joined the Library for Listening at Bureau for Listening.

Spanning more than a decade of publishing around sound and listening, the selection brings together artistic practices and critical perspectives across experimental music, ecology, technology, politics, pedagogy and the sonic arts.

The books include several issues of Ecoes, among them the latest issue, which served as the Sonic Acts Biennial Reader 2026, as well as Travelling Time, the Sonic Acts Academy 2018 Reader, The Academy of the Senses, and The Noise of Being and Unearthed by BJ Nilsen and Karl Lemieux.

Across these publications are contributions from Pauline Oliveros, Christina Kubisch, Catherine Christer Hennix, Steve Goodman (Kode9), Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Margarida Mendes, François J. Bonnet, Tomoko Sauvage, Tarek Atoui, Karen Bakker, Aura Satz, Russell Haswell, Hugo Esquinca, Robin Mackay, Mark Fell and Keith Fullerton Whitman, among many others.

We are very grateful to Sonic Acts for generously contributing these publications to the Library for Listening, where they are now available to browse, read and spend time with at Bureau for Listening. We are looking forward to share them with new audience as part of upcoming exhibitions of the library and reading room :)

🙏🏼🙏🏼 by @sonicacts

87

0

8 days ago

Part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 series, Steve Goodman’s lecture is now available to watch and listen back. Presented at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam during the Biennial Symposium, the talk revisits themes from his influential book ‘Sonic Warfare’ and asks what the politics of vibration might sound like today.

→ Watch the full lecture on the Sonic Acts YouTube channel, or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. LINK IN BIO.

Drawing from his forthcoming book ‘Notes on the Third Ear’, Goodman, also known as Kode9, traces an evolving ‘sonic ecology of fear’ through sonic booms, drone warfare, acoustic detection, and machine listening. Moving between warfare, sound art, and technological listening, he considers how sound shapes bodies, environments, memory, and perception, and asks what it means to listen beyond conventional hearing.

This video is part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 Symposium online lecture video series. It is realised as part of ‘New Perspectives for Action’, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the EU.

Video: Engage! TV
Design: Knoth & Renner with Anja Kaiser by @sonicacts

1k

13

10 days ago

Read the full text in Errant Journal no. 9 Companions, before the launch of our new issue in October. Follow the link in our bio to our online shop or to subscribe.

Image: @emilijaskarn, still from Burial, 2022.

The exhibition Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities
was commissioned by @framerframed and presented in partnership with @sonicacts as part of Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. by @sonicacts

156

0

10 days ago

Looking back at Sonic Acts Biennial 2026!

In her newly commissioned sound piece 'beyond the accident of time', Leilehua Lanzilotti layers voices and bells into a resonant spatial composition. Inspired by Isamu Noguchi’s never fully realised 'Bell Tower for Hiroshima' sculpture, the work moves between swelling tones, collision, and luminous stillness, where voices and bells come together across the spatial field.

Leilehua Lanzilotti is a composer, artist, and curator who explores the expressive possibilities of sound, colour, and timbre. She is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Music and holds the title of Doctor of Musical Arts. Grounded in her Kanaka Maoli heritage, she invites listeners to imagine worlds of reciprocity, resilience, and hope.

→ Read more about the work via the link in bio.

📷1, 3: ‘Listening Room’ at Zone2Source during Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. Photo by Pieter Kers.
📷2: Leilehua Lanzilotti performing ‘beyond the accident of time’ at The Noguchi Museum, New York, 2019. Photo by Don Stahl.

Commissioned by Sonic Acts, Leilehua Lanzilotti’s 'beyond the accident of time' was presented at the 'Listening Room' sound exhibition at the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. by @sonicacts

133

0

13 days ago

Part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 series, this video and podcast revisits Margarida Mendes’ performative lecture presented at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam during the Biennial Symposium.

→ Watch the full video on the Sonic Acts YouTube channel, or listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. LINK IN BIO.

In her poetic reading, Mendes traces the changing ecology of Portugal’s Tagus River, where pollution, dams, and eucalyptus monocultures have transformed the river and its surrounding landscapes. Through field recordings, voice, and testimonies from river guardians, she explores ecological mourning and the ways environmental loss is registered in bodies, communities, and the landscape.
Moving between geological deep time and the rhythms of rivers, bodies, and other forms of life, Mendes asks how we record change, sense extinction, and listen for what is absent as well as what remains.

This video is part of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 Symposium online lecture video series. It is realised as part of ‘New Perspectives for Action’, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the EU.

Video: Engage! TV
Design: Knoth & Renner with Anja Kaiser by @sonicacts

569

20

18 days ago

Public Attention was a sound-based workshop exploring collective rhythm, sonic togetherness, and the creation of shared attention that took place during Sonic Acts Biennal 2026. Drawing from grassroots protest practices – chants, call and response, protest music, noise interventions, and rhythmic actions that mobilise bodies in public space – the workshop examined sound as a political tool and a practice of resistance.

The workshop built on an ongoing artistic research project by Roman Tkachenko, examining the politics of sound in public space, extending that inquiry into a shared, participatory setting.

Public Attention is organised in collaboration with musicians Goya van der Heyden, Tara Reece, and Bruna Di Virgilio, alongside climate activist and member of Rhythms of Resistance Karla.

Image by Angelina Nikolayeva

co-funded by #europeanunion #newperspectivesforaction by @sonicacts

19

0

18 days ago

You might have noticed that we’ve been very active on Substack lately, and there’s a good reason for that. We have exciting news! 📚

If you’ve been searching for a sold-out Sonic Acts Press publication, you can now download it as a PDF, exclusively for paid subscribers. Ten publications are currently available, including 'The Geologic Imagination', a richly illustrated collection exploring the Anthropocene, and 'Ecoes 7', dedicated to listening and the unseen. We plan to add more, so keep an eye out for future releases! 👀

→ Become a subscriber on Substack and explore the recently added Sonic Acts publications. LINK IN BIO.

Sonic Acts Press’ publishing practice stretches back to 2001, bringing together artists, writers, theorists and researchers to explore some of the most urgent questions of our time. By making these texts available digitally, we hope to open up the archive and allow new readers to discover publications they may have missed the first time around.

→ If you prefer something you can hold in your hands, our webshop still has plenty to discover, from books and vinyl to CDs and merch.

Sonic Acts is supported by @stimuleringsfonds & @afk020. by @sonicacts

50

0

19 days ago

Looking back at the collaboration between Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 and Framer Framed. 🔥

As part of 'Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities' exhibition at Framer Framed, visual artist and researcher Äsel Kadyrkhanova presented her newly co-commissioned work ‘Nükte’. The hand-drawn video animation and large-scale charcoal drawings explore the incognisable presence of radiation in a landscape. They are based on the embodied memory of the artist's mother, who experienced nuclear testing that the Soviet Union conducted near Semey, Kazakhstan, between 1948 and 1991.

‘She remembers the sensation of the ground shaking during explosions, which she associated with being rocked in a cradle. Reflecting on this embodied childhood memory, I ask what a lived experience of nuclear testing could be carried in the body.’

The exhibition, curated by Fabienne Rachmadiev, explored the intertwined histories of nuclear infrastructures, colonialism, and resistance.

→ Read more about the work via the link in bio.

📷1: Äsel Kadyrkhanova, ‘Nükte’, 2026, installation view at Framer Framed. Photo by Pieter Kers.
📷2+3: Äsel Kadyrkhanova, ‘Nükte’, 2026, detail. Photo courtesy of the artist.
📷4: Äsel Kadyrkhanova participating in roundtable conversation 'Nuclear Histories and Protest Movements' at Framer Framed. Photo by Pieter Kers.

'Nükte' by Äsel Kadyrkhanova was co-commissioned by Sonic Acts and Framer Framed. by @sonicacts

101

1

21 days ago

Looking back at Sonic Acts Biennial 2026!

Ragnhild May’s 'Coming Out the Ear' perfectly captured the festival's focus on listening. In this beautiful series of bronze ear sculptures, Danish artist and composer rethinks instruments, questioning who they are designed for and how listening is enacted through them.

By shifting the ear from its anatomical context into a sculptural one, May draws attention to the material conditions through which listening takes place. She approaches the ear as both organ and object, monumental and intimate, a threshold between bodies and environments.

→ Read more about the work via the link in bio.

📷1-4: Ragnhild May, ‘Coming Out the Ear’, 2026, presented at the ‘Listening Room’ at Zone2Source during Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. Photo by Pieter Kers.
📷5: Ragnhild May performing ‘The Body Organ’ during ‘Regarding the Third Ear: VESSELS’ at Zone2Source. Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. Photo by Pieter Kers.

'Coming Out the Ear' by Ragnhild May was conceived in the context of 'Regarding the Third Ear: VESSELS', a research project curated and convened by Xenia Benivolski for Sonic Acts Biennial 2026. 'Coming Out the Ear' is co-commissioned by Sonic Acts and supported by the Danish Arts Foundation. Xenia Benivolski’s work is supported by the FWO. by @sonicacts

155

0

a month ago