The latest season of the podcast, hosted by the Collaborative Research Center 1512 "Intervening Arts" at Freie Universität Berlin, focuses on artists and researchers from Asia and the Asian diaspora
Following the first season of the podcast, which presented conversations with African-American artists, the second season of Sonic Interventions will place perspectives from Asia and the Asian diaspora in the foreground. The new season will lend an ear to the diverse and translocal sound practices of the contemporary Asian diaspora. Across four episodes, special guests discuss how acoustic forms of resistance play a role in their work and private lives. The focus will be on alternative practices of hearing and listening, as well as on the forms, possibilities, and limitations of archiving sound and music. In addition, guests will discuss how digital audio archives can be transformed into interactive places in which marginalized people and groups form collective memories and imaginations. One new episode will be released every two weeks, available at https://sonicinterventions.podigee.io.The first episode, "Archival Silences," has been online since mid-September. It features a conversation with artist and scholar meLê yamomo and theater and performance studies experts Doris Kolesch, Layla Zami, and Emma Lo. In the episode, yamomo explains how he deals with archival silences in his artistic and academic work, and discusses his performance Echoing Europe, his concept of the "sonus," and his transnational research project "Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives" (DeCoSEAS). From October 21-22, 2023, Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt will celebrate "Listening to the World - 100 Years of Radio," presenting the results of a transregional radio research project that was co-curated by yamomo.
Other episodes feature Anjeline de Dios, cultural geographer and vocal artist, on the topics of disobedience, well-being, and sonic conceptions of space; Rully Shabara, an experimental vocalist, on issues such as digitization and open-source technology; and Victoria Pham, an Australian artist, evolutionary biologist, and composer, on subjects such as rhythm, listening, and collective digital The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1512 "Intervening Arts" began work in January 2022. It gives researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin University of the Arts, the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), and Leuphana University Lüneburg a framework to explore how artistic perspectives and positions impact societal processes. Its main focus is on the relationship between art, society, and politics. The research center’s spokesperson is Jürgen Brokoff, professor of modern German literature at Freie Universität Berlin.
The CRC also works together with non-university partners. One of its main focuses is on promoting dialogue and exchange with individuals from the art and cultural scene. The podcast Sonic Interventions is one format that addresses this focus.
The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität since its founding in December 1948.
