Sonic Acts Biennial 2022 Opening Evening
On Friday 30 September we celebrate the launch of Sonic Acts Biennial 2022 – warmly inviting you to the opening of our exhibition one sun after another at W139, Amsterdam.
A Syntax of Smell, Cesar Majorana. Photo by Tom Janssen.
In conversation with the works exhibited, the evening includes interventions by researchers, artists and performers, each responding in turn to the porous and cumulative ways toxicity traverses across micro and macro experience.
The evening questions how encounters with extraction, leakage and pollution might be rendered palpable — an interactive open lab by artist Cesar Majorana and tasting sessions by designer Leanne Wijnsma employing sensory experiences to illuminate environmental issues so often designated as invisible. The evening includes a collaborative performance by Loma Doom and G, directly responding to, and interweaving, the myriad of sonic elements present in the exhibition space.
Entrance to the Opening Evening is free and all are welcome!
The Syntax of Smell, Cesar Majorana
Installation and Open Lab
Our daily life has increasingly been scented by large conglomerates, and many of our scent-based memories conceal histories of pollution, waste, and ecological extraction. Scents of fresh laundry and washed linen are likely the product of laboratory produced nitromusks; the taste of 'fresh' supermarket orange juice is usually a product of ethyl butyrate; and the burning of sandalwood incense, a dear memory for many, is both neurotoxic and linked to a few forms of cancer.
Originally inspired by the urgencies of the pandemic and the anosmia that millions of people experienced, The Syntax of Smell looks at the entanglements between scent memory, nostalgia and toxicity. Engaging with commercial artificial scent production on a micro scale, The Syntax of Smell simultaneously utilises and critiques the olfactory toolbooks of these large industries. During specified moments when the work is activated in the context of an open lab, visitors will be able to share their stories with Majorana, who in turn will create a special scent for them that evokes their lost memories, while simultaneously underlining the links between our memories, our notion of ‘artificiality’, and pollution.
Sensing CO2, Leanne Wijnsma
Tasting Session
Scientists continuously warn against the destructive impact of increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. Measured in parts-per-million (ppm), CO2 levels at the beginning of the industrial revolution were around 280 ppm, in 2000 the registration passed 370 ppm and current recordings are the highest yet at 415 ppm. The results are directly felt in climate change: rising temperatures, chaotic seasons, extreme weather. Yet such continuous alterations are difficult to grasp on an intimate level. To become resilient, an understanding of the matter is crucial.
While CO2 gas is odourless and invisible to the human eye, in some exceptions the gas is visible: for example as bubbles in sparkling mineral water and sodas. Sensing CO2 uses the sensation of sipping a fizzy drink – in the shape of seven carbonated lemonades offered during the exhibition opening – to make tangible the changing levels of CO2 measurement. The added CO2 bubbles trigger the tongue receptors while the amount defines the intensity. Let your tastebuds experience how our behaviour influences CO2 levels and taste possible futures.
Mend Your Own Got Us Somewhere, Somewhere Got Us Here, Loma Doom and G
Live Performance
To mark the opening of one sun after another, artists Loma Doom and G will premiere Mend Your Own Got Us Somewhere, Somewhere Got Us Here, a live performance in W139.
Entering into dialogue with the works on display, Mend Your Own Got Us Somewhere, Somewhere Got Us Here is a ritual passage through a world coming to an end. Interweaving the myriad of sonic elements present in the exhibition space, Loma Doom and G combine their sound and text-based creative practices through an improvised conversation with the works. If listening, as Pauline Oliveros has stated, is a call to action, then Mend Your Own functions as a manifestation of that action — giving attention to noise, cacophony, and the meanings encountered in both.
For any questions please email us at info@sonicacts.com.