Hi there.
The last Newsletter we sent out was in December 2022: an announcement of yours truly, Bill Dietz, being appointed as the new Director of Overtoon. In the long interval since, much has been afoot behind the scenes paving the way for our next phase. And now, after more than a year, we’re almost there.
Along with endless logistics, much of this interim has been spent reflecting on the history of our organization, on the state and meaning of “sound art” today, and on possible public roles an organization like Overtoon can play. Thinking through all of this in this particular past year has of course also meant wondering how to even say “sound art” aloud when surrounded by and implicated in omnidirectional horror — in unchecked state and police terror, genocidal violence (also its excuses and apologists), and the all-too-often forgotten deadly mass displacements that define the moment.
One concrete manifestation of our broad, ongoing reflection has been a series of conversations I’ve recorded with a group of international artists and theorists who work with and on sound. Starting today and once a week for the next 8 weeks, we’ll be releasing these conversations as podcast I’m calling:
Instead of “sound art,” say: abrasion, a dirge, willed from the other side of a leaky room, undisciplined, celebrative, dangerous, always emerging.
The title is made up of fragments of quotations from each of the 8 participants in the series, all of whom variously question and critique the very notion of “sound art.”
The 8 participants in the series are: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Nikita Gale (whose episode is live now!), Jennie C. Jones, Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Benjamin Piekut, Marina Rosenfeld, Lauren Tosswill, & Hong-Kai Wang.
You can find more information about the podcast and listen to episodes here:
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(as well as on Overtoon’s brand new soundcloud: [removed])
In the last few months, we’ve resumed hosting residencies (with Maria Komarova, Sydney Spann & Theodore Schafer, Masha Mysocka & Jeremy Knowles), as well as reestablished many of our long-standing cooperations with local and international partners. Much of this has been possible thanks to our administrative manager, Otis Dehaes, hired last summer, and holding down our office until I am able to arrive in Brussels. Thank you, Otis!
There’s much more on its way in the next months. We’ll bug you about all of that with this newsletter and on social media. Before long we’ll also be presenting a new face for Overtoon – a new website and look designed by the creators of our podcast website, OSP (Open Source Publishing).
For now, we hope you enjoy the podcast and that you’re as well as can be. Tune in every Thursday between now and April 4th!
Bill