Sonic Acts welcomed interdisciplinary sound artist C. Lavender (Lavender Suarez) as the first artist-in-residence at the Spatial Sound Studio in Rotterdam, marking the beginning of the Spatial Sound Residency project. During her stay (27 June – 3 July 2025), Lavender began developing a newly commissioned work, ‘Dissipation Traces’, which will premiere as part of the Listening Room at the Sonic Acts Biennial in February and March 2026. Sonic Acts interviewed her both in the residency space in Rotterdam and at Willem Twee Studios to learn more about her process, influences, and approach to working with spatial sound.

An artist and educator based in New York City, C. Lavender works across performance, recordings, installation, and workshops. Her practice engages the meditative, hypnotic, and psychoacoustic properties of sound – often exploring its therapeutic and perceptual dimensions. ‘Dissipation Traces’ is a multichannel composition that reflects on the fragility of ageing machines and the human body, created in part using rare mid-century scientific test equipment and analogue synthesisers at Willem Twee Studios in Den Bosch – including a vintage ARP 2500.

The Spatial Sound Residency is a new initiative in Sonic Acts’ 30-year exploration of spatial audio. It offers artists a dedicated space in Rotterdam to experiment and create multichannel soundworks in a flexible studio equipped with octophonic and Dolby Atmos systems. The residency supports artistic research, production, and curatorial exchange, building on Sonic Acts’ archive and expertise to foster new ways of experiencing sound in space.

C. Lavender’s residency is organised in collaboration with Willem Twee Studios. The Spatial Sound Residency is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Cultuurloket DigitALL, and Mondriaan Fund, and is part of ‘New Perspectives for Action’, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union. This video is published by Paradiso & Sonic Acts as part of the same project.

More information: www.sonicacts.com

CREDITS
Camera: Ollie Paterson
Video editing: Hrvoslava Brkušić
Sound mastering: Hrvoje Nikšić
Sonic Acts sound logo: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros
Production: Sonic Acts