Adriana Knouf – Interview
9 March 2024
W139, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Writer, musician, and xenologist, Adriana Knouf is the first (known) trans artist to send artwork into outer space. Her multidisciplinary practice is inspired by, amongst many other sources, queer/feminist science-fiction, trans-activist zines from the 1970s, and The Xenofeminist Manifesto (2015) by the international collective Laboria Cuboniks. She is the founding facilitator of the tranxxenolab, ‘a nomadic artistic research laboratory that promotes entanglements among entities trans and xeno’. Knouf designs and sells synthesiser modules through her company ‘selestium modular’, also performing with them live under the name Selestra.

Following her lecture – ‘Some Fragments of Xenology: ‘you realise that the fieldlines intersect at the unexpected moment already’ – at the Sonic Acts Biennial ‘24 symposium, Knouf sat down to talk with Hannah Pezzack. Their conversation journeys far and wide, covering everything from Elon Musk and SpaceX, to fungi and modular synthesisers.

Research: https://tranxxenolab.net/
Synth modules: https://modular.selestium.net/