Sonic Acts presents: Touched by Sound concert at Sonic Acts Biennial 2024.

Animating Michel Waisvisz’ archive through sound, this collective improvisation is an invitation of Tarek Atoui and Sonic Acts, bringing together musicians having a personal practice that speaks to Waisvisz’ ideas. Engaging with archival samples, their own developed instruments, and the new instruments- such as the touch-sensitive Crackle Synth, they explore gesture and the inherent tactility of sound within the fluid present. The performance features sound artists and composers Ji Youn Kang, Julia Giertz, turntablist dj Sniff, Boris Shershenkov, Görkem Arıkan and Tarek Atoui.

The instigator of the collective improvisation Tarek Atoui set base with the self-developed RTM. A sound looper and sampler that captures sound from external sources and instruments,Meanwhile, creating engaging interactions between analogue, digital, and acoustic instruments, the instruments Ji Youn Kang develops on the boundary between time-continuous and time-discrete signal computations. Using minimal digital components like logic gates, she experiments with unconventional combinations to extend their characteristics, intentionally introducing ‘errors’. In an approach inspired by Waisvisz’ Crackle Box, a xylophone is conceived as an interface, incorporating signals from microphones, her body, objects, and sensing components. Görkem Arıkan plays the Wirwarp – which incorporates conductive rubber cord stretch sensors – and Boris Shershenkov performs with the AudioPuller. Influenced by Waisvisz’ inventions, both instruments draw upon the artist’s distinctive gestural expression. Also joining, Julia Giertz brought her modular synthesisers and metal resonators, taking up the container as an ancient human technology. Her metal resonators not only hold sound, but filter and distribute sound too, each in their own unique way.

Wirwarp was commissioned by Sonic Acts, and premiered at the Sonic Acts Biennial 2024.