Read the statement on Sonic Agency here

Friday, 29. March

18-22:00 SONIC AGENCY LISTENING SESSION V

at WAF Galerie (Schadekgasse 8, 1060 Wien) – Free Entry

🌿 Listening to the contributions of Pavel Milyakov, Xepaces, and more tba

🌿 Lecture-Performance by Olia Sosnovskaya “burn, on fire, alight, inflamed, glow, ablaze, fervent, go up in smoke”

🌿 Live DJ-set by MKCMLLN

Open discussion moderated by Aleksei Borisionok & Shilla Strelka

* All contributions released via our Website & Soundcloud

OLIA SOSNOVSKAYA –  “burn, on fire, alight, inflamed, glow, ablaze, fervent, go up in smoke”

The lecture-performance is part of the artist’s ongoing research on the political dimensions of celebration and collective movements. It addresses the histories of (post)socialist festivals, rave culture, and recent protest events, intertwining affect and ideology, language and its embodiment. Superimposing various texts, historical narratives, and media representations, it studies the revolutionary event and its co-optation by capitalist and state apparatuses.

Olia Sosnovskaya is an artist, writer and cultural organizer. She works with text, performative and visual practices, intertwining the notions of festivity, collective choreographies, affect, score and the political. Currently a PhD in Practice candidate at Academie of Fine Arts Vienna.

ARTIST

PAVEL MILYAKOV – “gtr channel II”

Having achieved certain recognition with his dancefloor-oriented project Buttechno, the Berlin-based artist is currently focused on sonic experiments and artistic collaborations under his birth name.

Opposed to the aggressive imperial politics of his homeland, Pavel uses his work to acknowledge the historical and cultural context, delving into sociopsychological issues that haunt the society, and addressing memory — both collective and individual — and its potential to change our visions of the future.

Working in various musical genres, he created collaborative works with artists such as Bendik Giske, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Yana Pavlova, and Richie Culver. Pavel presented his live sets at such venues as Berghain, and Tresor and performed at festivals like CTM, Berlin Atonal, Terraforma, and Primavera Sound. Working with different media, he created the audiovisual pieces “Infra” and “Haunted Mansion” commissioned by the Venice Biennale in 2020 and 2021. Pavel also runs and curates the “psy x” record label — a platform for sonic and visual works by like-minded artists and for ‘non-format’ records of his own.

ARTIST

XEPACES – “bare reinforced concrete”

Xepaces (Alex Naidenko) is a DJ, creative director and independent journalist who primarily works with ambient/experimental genres and writes primarily about culture, society and music. He wrote for a bunch of well-respected media like Lyuk media (Kharkiv independent media), i-D (British, Japan, Italian department), MixMag (Ukrainian department), etc. He promotes theatre and club culture in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Art director of the Kharkiv underground bar “Torba”.

ARTIST

NINA EMGE exhibition

Nina Emge lives and works between Zurich and Berlin. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from the Zurich University of the Arts. The works are mostly exhibited as installations and sound works. Emge is an active member of the Transnational Sound Initiative. Her works have been shown at the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Istituto Svizzero Rome, Uferhallen Berlin, Haus Konstruktiv Zurich, Shedhalle Zurich, Les Urbaines Lausanne, Kunsthalle Zurich and other national and international contexts.

ARTIST

MKCMLLN dj-set

Maksym Uvarov aka MKCMLLN is a Ukrainian DJ and sound producer based in Vienna. Hailing from Kyiv’s vibrant nightlife he is bringing his views and ideas on club culture and music to Viennese underground scene.

Since 2023 he has been a part of Ziel, non-profit creative initiative. The goal of Ziel is to interact with local residents and Ukrainian artists by organizing various events, all proceeds from which go to charity. Currently Maksym is preoccupied with his own interdisciplinary project Oxygene, hosting monthly shows at Res Radio and occasional club nights, building connections with the scene outside of Vienna but also promoting local talent.

ARTIST

ALEKSEI BORISIONOK co-moderator

Aleksei Borisionok is a curator, writer and organizer currently based in Minsk, Belarus, and Vienna, Austria. He is a member of the artistic-research group Problem Collective and the Work Hard! Play Hard! working group. Alexei focuses on art and politics in Eastern Europe during the socialist and post-socialist periods. His work has been published in various magazines, catalogues and online platforms including “L’Internationale Online”, “Partisan”, “Moscow Art Magazine”, “Springerin”, “Hjärnstorm”, “Paletten”, “syg.ma” among many others. Aleksei has written and curated exhibitions on education and unlearning, workers movements and strikes, the history of artistic practices, museum displays and social movements. His current research investigates the temporalities of post-socialism.