The Basque anarchist artist Mattin has spent the last decade
establishing a highly distinctive practice in noise and 'free'
improvisational music. His work pays homage to the histories of these
genres, while simultaneously undertaking a provocative and often
humorous interrogation of the rules and standards to which they
adhere—the proposed anti-sociality of noise, the implicit 'freedom' in
improvisation. Mattin considers this testing to be a process of
'distributing vulnerability' across the core assumptions made by
audiences and performers alike.
Disembraining are bringing Mattin to Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane in
May, to stage a series of non-concerts, concerts, silences,
conversations, and other activities in response to the question 'What
isn't music?' This question nods to Australia's long-running
experimental festival What Is Music? The festival largely provided its
own answer, embracing John Cage's maxim 'everything we do is music',
philosophically assimilating all sound (and action) into the 'project'
of music. This radical opening up of 'music' to sound plays out overtly
in the 'noise' tradition, but abates the discerning of experimental
sound's 'non-musical' possibilities. In a context of Cageian consensus,
it becomes crucial to reframe the question as a negation: What sounds
remain impossible to assimilate? What isn't music?
SYDNEY _ _ _
THURS MAY 2 - The NOW now @ Hibernian House
FRI MAY 3 - Collaboration with Douglas Kahn in an Anechoic Chamber at Sydney University
MELBOURNE _ _ _
SAT MAY 4 - International Noise Conference @ New Low Gallery, Goodtime Studios. Hosted by Sabbatical and NO PA [Starting 2pm]
SUN MAY 5 - Non-Concert / Why Noise? [post-INC] @ Goodtime Studios
TUES MAY 7 - Make It Up Club @ Bar Open
WED MAY 8 - Art Forum Series @ VCA
BRISBANE _ _ _
THURS MAY 9 - Performance (after Luke Fowler after Cornelius Cardew) @ Institute of Modern Art [6pm]
SAT MAY 11 - Talk / Listen / Non-Concert @ The Loft QUT [4pm]
SUN MAY 12 - Real Bad, Mattin @ Real Bad, Moorooka
15th May, Artist talk given by Mattin at Taipei University of Fine Arts, Taipei
16th May, Performance with Hong-Kai Wang at Z Space, Taichung
17th May, Mattin at TCAC, Taipei
18th May, Performance with Hong-Kai Wangat Losing Sounds, Noise Kitchen, Taipei
19th May, Performance, zajia lab. Beijing 8:30 pm