Talk by softchaos
ig: https://www.instagram.com/softchaosssss/
soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/softchaosssss
resident advisor: https://ra.co/dj/softchaos

Also available to watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdHaB2OOQ7k

This presentation, consisting of a lecture and reading, will explore the fundamental question of who is permitted to be experimental? In extension, it is an investigation into the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. Through the prism of radical black thought and culture, the lecture extends the work of Lorraine O’Grady, Tony Cokes, and Hannah Black in asking about modalities of consent, affect, and risk in music making and more generally, who gets to be loud? Who is heard when they are being honest about the world in their music?

Drawing from softchaos’s own study of black trans/black femme music history and theoretical practice of those writing about how sound moves, the lecture will focus on the history of discourse of sound politics and attempt to re-position and reclaim black art as a force of social generative power. For softchaos, improvisation in lecture/performance provides a unique epistemological standpoint from which to investigate the provocative connections between black aesthetics and Western music making. As the critical, lyrical, and disruptive performance of the human, softchaos’s concept of lecture experimentation also brings such figures as Lil’ Kim and Sylvia Wynter, Jeff Mills and Slim Soldedad, Moor Mother, and Immanuel Kant into conversation with each other.

During the lecture, they will read excerpts and present visuals from two of their previous (and ongoing) works. »Where did these plants come from and other ontological stress« (2021), first staged at Matadero Madrid Centro de Creación Contemporánea explores the critical dissonance between black culture’s trans-continental generative power and how it’s valued. »voice works 5: WAKE IT UP WITH SALT« (2024), first shown at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, draws from works by Édouard Glissant and Fred Moten and personal sound archival materials to recreate a spiral telling of the body.

Friday 31 January 2025
CTM 2025
radialsystem

CTM 2025: Freaky Belladonnas: Permission, Risk and Movement in Experimental Music by softchaos

Friday 31 January 2025
CTM 2025
radialsystem

Artist talk and workshop by Dadabots

Musicians are exploring new sounds and creative processes with generative machine learning. In a world of easy fast food AI music apps, trve kvlt music hackers take on the arduous path of building, training, and breaking their own neural nets. If this is you, this talk will start your journey.

Dadabots highlight a decade of their underground experimentation with neural synthesis, from numpy and RNNs to diffusion, alongside 24/7 live streams of infinite death metal, legendary artist collaborations, human vs AI beatbox battles, machines that invent new genres, prompt jockeying as a live music format, open source AI, and more.

@dadabots

CTM 2025: Hack Your Own Music AI

Berlin’s CTM Festival supports an open, networked, mutually-collaborative, global music culture through its yearly 10-day festival as well as countless collaborative and research initiatives, co-commissions, concerts, and other constantly-evolving formats. The 2 decades old festival stands out for its conscious pairing of daring artistic content and adventurous club experiences with an in-depth discourse programme, framing today’s sounds and music cultures within a shifting, hybrid global society.

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