The Symposium is one of the key programmes of Sonic Acts Biennial 2026, a place to sharpen the ideas that underpin the main theme and direction, Melted for Love. Over two days, artists and thinkers explore how love, technology, and sound shape our sense of belonging.

The block Politics of Vibration explores questions such as how can sound become a tool? And how can it function as a weapon, a warning signal, or a conduit of joy?

Steve Goodman (Kode9) – artist, DJ, and author of the influential book Sonic Warfare (2010) – considers sound as a physical and political force, an entity that moves through architecture, bodies, and atmosphere. Goodman will also be in conversation with writer and researcher Martina Raponi, whose work explores Deaf music and sonic practices.

Theorist and writer Eleni Ikoniadou confronts ‘the end of the world’ – a time marked by the normalisation of authoritarianism, ecological devastation, and institutional violence. Artist and writer Salomé Voegelin follows with a performance lecture asking whether love and leadership can coexist – and whether desire might replace control.

The programme builds to a powerful close with a live improvisational performance by theorist and poet Ayesha Hameed and musician Aimée Theriot. Their piece invites the audience into what Palestinian artist Bint Mbareh calls ‘aggressive listening’, exploring the concept of ‘exaqua’ – a term coined by poet M. NourbeSe Philip in Zong! to describe a watery equivalent of exhumation, or the act of reclaiming from the earth. Through poetry and sound, this reclamation process splinters and disperses, bearing witness to destruction on scales ranging from genocide to intimate grief and loss.

Eleni Ikoniadou and Salomé Voegelin’s presentations will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Hannah Pezzack.

Lectures and participation of Steve Goodman (Kode9), Eleni Ikoniadou, Martina Raponi, and Salomé Voegelin are realised by Paradiso and Sonic Acts as of New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.