Shadow Channel: Hidden Layers, part of Sonic Acts Academy, features artist presentations by young and emerging artists from diverse backgrounds. London-based duo patten presents 3049, a network of activities that seeks to envision a positive, non-dystopic collective future. Rana Hamadeh discusses her opera The Ten Murders of Josephine that explores the conditions of ‘validity’ within legal discourse. Moor Mother discusses Afrofuturism, the importance of practical artistic work and ways to legitimise cultural knowledge. Jelena Viskovic, Kei Kreutler, Holly Childs, and Alessandro Bertelle present a speculative reality five years from now, told in Patternist, an augmented reality demo game for urban research, alternative economies, and sci-fi visions. Artist Sam Rolfes performs a fight against the rapid iteration of the technology that prevents us from fully comprehending the context or utility of our tools.

In their subject matter and form these works respond to the critical social and political challenges of migration, climate change and technological advances and explicitly reach out to a young and new audience from diverse cultural backgrounds. The presentation at Sonic Acts Academy provides transnational working opportunities for the artists, and stimulates the exchange between science, civil society and a young public.

Photo Pieter Kers